


Out of Time

by youreyestheyglow



Series: The Night Life [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale, wtnv
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet the fam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn’t read the first part in the series, Third Eye Blind, this might be a little confusing. I’m not sure how much I’m going to reference the first part, but this is definitely a sequel, and is meant to tie up multiple loose ends.

_Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt._

The bee paused, then flew in circles around Carlos's head again, in the most annoying pastime imaginable.

_Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt._

It paused again. 

 _Bzzt_.

The sound became a cell phone, vibrating against a bedside table. 

_Bzzt._

Carlos groped for it, noting the time as he flipped it open. "H'lo?"

"Carlos. Jesus, how long does it take you to answer your goddamn phone?"

Carlos loosened himself from Cecil's half-asleep, grasping fingers and rolled out of bed. "It's two in the damn morning, Sony. You can't expect me to wake up instantaneously."

"Two o'clock? You mean 2:30? You must be really tired, not giving the  _exact_ time."

He tripped over a fully packed bag and remembered that yes, he had packed up his stuff yesterday, and yes, he had been preparing to leave. 

A glance at the clock confirmed the time. Two o'clock, precisely. "It's early. I don't even know the  _year_ , let alone have the  _time_."

"It's May 13th, 2014. Does that help?"

"Yes." It was the same day and year here. The time was off by half an hour. He plugged in the radio. It blinked on and agreed with his phone and clock. "Is it really two thirty in the morning? It's been years since I had to get up this early."

"Yes, yes it is. 2:32 now, if you'd like it exact."

"Carlos? What's going on?" Cecil sounded far too tired to be accusatory. "It's 2, not 2:30. Who are you talking to?"

Carlos held up a finger and sat back down on the bed. If Cecil was awake already, there was no point in leaving.

"Is someone there? Carlos, do you have a boyfriend? My God, you go years single and then find one in the weirdest friggin' town in the country. You're doing better than I am. You know, I googled Night Vale, and nothing came up. Google. Google came up with nothing. The only place I could find any mention of it was in governmental records."

So it wasn't just in Night Vale - no one could find it. Because of the void?

"Well, tell your boytoy I say hi, and sorry that he's gotta put up with you."

"Sony, you're stalling. You don't do that unless there's bad news." He mouthed 'my sister' so Cecil wasn't totally confused. 

"Yeah, well, this is pretty bad news. Well, I guess not. Or, well, it  _is_ , but it's not like much is going to change, so -"

" _Sonya_."

"Ooh, you used my full name. Ok. Mom woke up from her coma."

"What's the bad news?"

"She's only surviving on life support. She told us to pull the cord once she's gotten to see us all one more time. Car, I know you're a few hours away, but I'm waiting in the airport now - Alex was sweet enough to let me call you - and the hospital said she could survive for weeks on that life support. But you know mom, she's not prepared to be a burden, and apparently she cursed out Alex for keeping her alive for so long. Alex's daughter is staying with her boyfriend, and between her room and the guest room, he's got enough space for the two of us. After I yelled at him. Bring the boy, I like seeing Alex annoyed. And it would be good to meet him, especially if he's already sleeping over your place. Assuming you sleep."

Carlos was reorganizing the clothing in his suitcase, packing for a week. "I'm coming. I'm leaving in twenty minutes."

"I'll call you when I get off the plane, if you want to wait. That way you don't have to be alone with Alex." 

"It's just as long a drive from here as it is a flight from there. We'll probably get in at about the same time. I'll see you then."

"Bye, Car. I've packed for a week, and expect you to as well. Can't wait to share a house with you again."

"Bye, Sony. See you in a few hours."

He hung up and turned to Cecil. "My mom was in a coma. She woke up, and is on life support - do you know what that is? No? Basically, they do whatever they have to to keep you alive. I never bothered learning about the thing, no one in my family would ever want to be on it - it keeps your heart beating, but it's expensive. My mom wants them to pull the plug, she doesn't want to be on it anymore, but she wants to see my sister and brother and me one more time before she dies. I'm leaving as soon as I'm packed. I'll be back in a week, I promise. You can stay here until the morning if you want, just remember to lock the door behind you, I'll leave the key - " He pulled on pants.

"Carlos -"

"Hmm?" he mumbled through a shirt.

"Would you..." he was blushing again. "I'm sorry, I don't want to interfere, but... could I come with you? Of course, it's your family, and I didn't know your mother, and I keep getting the impression that death in the real world means much more than death here, but -"

"Ceece, I'd bring you, but - well, for one thing, I don't know how well you'd do outside of Night Vale. I mean, I tried to cut down a tree, and you nearly exploded. What would happen if you left? And..." Carlos rubbed his eyes. Did they have homophobia in Night Vale? No one had even looked twice at the same-sex, interracial couple. No one had said a word. And it had made sense - in a town like this, who cared who liked whom? "Do you know what homophobia is?"

He could practically see Cecil's brain churning. "Well,  _homo_ means  _same_ , and  _phobia_ means  _fear_ , so... fear of the same?"

"I like your definition better. But no, it means people who hate homosexuals, gay people, people who like people who are the same sex. Basically, it means that in the real world, there are people who hate us for liking each other instead of women. And unfortunately, my older brother, Alex, is one of them. I haven't spoken to him in... years, actually, six, since mom fell into her coma. And I'm staying with him. And it's going to suck for me, but I lived with him for my entire childhood. I can handle him. I don't know how he'll react to you, or how he'll treat you, and if he's cruel I might break his nose, which would ruin my mom's funeral." He laughed, a sad laugh. "She'd probably be cheering me on from the grave, but I doubt that the rest of my family would approve."

"Did you really make up that  _excuse_ to keep me here?" Cecil huffed. "You could have just said no, I might be from Night Vale but I understand that it's your mother who died, I wouldn't have fought -"

" _Excuse_? Cecil, I'm not kidding - my brother doesn't like me. He's been smacking me around since I was a kid, trying to hit me straight. I only brought home a boyfriend  _once_ before I learned not to introduce boyfriends to Alex. I would  _love_ for you to come - hell, Sony  _invited_ you - I just don't know how Alex would treat you and I don't know if you could survive leaving town."

"You don't have any problems with me coming with you?"

"No. None."

Cecil kicked off the sheets and began the hunt for his clothing. "I'm going home to pack. Pick me up on your way out of town."

Carlos raised an eyebrow. "More confident since you found out I was staying for you?"

Cecil blushed again. "No, more nervous since finding out you might leave." 

He walked out while pulling on a shirt. Carlos felt a deepening sense of guilt, and a wave of relief that he had dawdled as long as he had - if he'd packed up and left when he'd decided to, he wouldn't have even said good-bye to Cecil, let alone stayed.

Given more time to pack, he rethought most of what was in his bag. He didn't really need that, or that, but he'd need a suit for the funeral. And space - going back into the real world meant being able to buy things that weren't available here, and he'd need someplace to put it. He wasn't flying, but he wanted to keep the paper, pens, and wheat hidden. He knew that technically, he was under Cecil's protection, but that didn't mean the Secret Police wouldn't take away his pencils. 

And there was another thing he wanted to buy, too, one of those watches that showed the date as well as the time, and not one of the electronic ones that linked up to satellites and changed to reflect the local time. 

He left fifteen minutes later, and arrived at Cecil's house to find him waiting, packed, in his doorway. 

"Okay, Cecil, time to find out if you can leave town." 

He drove slowly as he approached the edge of town, worried that leaving might cause a sudden heart attack and he'd have to reverse in a hurry. As they left, Carlos winced, but reported nothing more than a brief twinge. Carlos watched Night Vale shrink in his rearview mirror. Was it him, or did it blink out of existence for a moment? 

"All right. You remember how I said I was going to have to teach you about the real world? I've got to do it now. Ready?" _  
_

Cecil nodded.

"First of all, people don't usually carry weapons around. Some do, but it's not as ubiquitous as it is in Night Vale. You - you didn't bring a weapon with you, right?" Had Cecil ever had a weapon with him?

"No, I don't ever carry a weapon. I've never needed one."

"That's - really weird, considering the rest of the town, but good. Second of all, librarians are people. They might be a little strict about keeping everyone quiet, but they don't attack." He could see Cecil's incredulous glance out of the corner of his eye. "Paper, pens, pencils, wheat, wheat-byproducts, books - none of it is banned. There's not a lot that  _is_ banned, for that matter. Houses and phones aren't bugged. You aren't being watched. Hooded figures, angels, dragons, tentacle monsters - these things don't exist in the real world. Actually, speaking of tentacles, can you move yours?"

Cecil sat there, and for a moment Carlos thought he'd fallen asleep. Then he let out a breath. "No. No, I can't. They won't move.  _They aren't moving_."

"Cecil - I'm so sorry, I didn't even think about that." Why hadn't he thought about that? Moving tattoos had Night Vale written all over them, he should have known they wouldn't work outside of town. "Do you want me to turn around?"

Cecil shook his head. "No, no. I'll be fine." 

Carlos reached down and took one of Cecil's clenched hands in his own. "Tattoos don't move. The void isn't a thing. People have never even heard of Night Vale. Traffic reports involve telling people if the roads are clear or not. Weather reports tell people what the weather is like. Valentine's Day is a wonderful day for couples and a sad, lonely day for singles. Being someone's valentine is a good thing. Santa Claus is a story told to young children. Parents give their kids presents on Christmas and pretend they're from Santa. The government doesn't release bears on Christmas." Carlos listed the many differences until Cecil's head started drooping, at which point he turned up the radio. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to listen to an actual talk show, or music by artists he'd heard of, or hearing an actual weather report, an honest-to-god traffic report. 

And as he drove, he thought about all the things he wouldn't tell Cecil if he didn't have to. Because, for all Night Vale was a violent, terrifying, supernatural, deadly place, discrimination wasn't even a thing. There were people in there, people from the real world, who had found themselves in Night Vale and stayed, because it seemed like a better place than the real world. Transgendered people - well, who cared what sex you were, as long as you weren't trying to kill anybody? For God's sake, they had totally androgynous hooded figures and angels running around, the humans could be whatever the hell they wanted. Homosexual? No one had once said to him, "oh, you're gay," as though it was a shock, as though he was  _supposed_ to be straight. Females could defend themselves just as well as males, and could be just as violent as males; why would anyone offend a woman who could handle a machine gun just as well as a man could? And in the deep darkness of the night and the bright heat of the day, the color of your skin didn't matter, and being black only meant that you could handle the sun a bit better. It was only now, driving out to see his family, including a brother who had despised him for most of his life and a sister who had been forced to defend him for most of his childhood, that he realized that a gay, Mexican scientist had a damn good life in Night Vale. And Cecil hadn't even believed that homophobia existed, couldn't imagine or comprehend its existence, had scoffed at it. How could he explain racism? Sexism? Transphobia? How could he explain that a world without yearly Valentine's Day Massacres could be just as bad as a world that had weekly crisises involving the degeneration of human beings into dark clouds and students learning about legbones from past mayors?

He switched to a radio station with music. 

Four hours later, he was nearing his hometown, and his phone buzzed. Cecil jumped. The call went through the car. "Hey, Sony. Did you just land?"

"Got my luggage and everything. Where are you?"

"Ten minutes away from the airport. Want me to stop and pick you up?"

"Sure." 

She gave him the information and hung up. 

"Do you want me to sit in the back seat, so she can sit up front?" Cecil asked anxiously.

"Nah, she'll be all right."

"Do you think she'll like me?" He seemed much more nervous now that he'd had some sleep and could think straight.

"Sonya has always liked my boyfriends."

"...Boyfriends?"

Carlos glanced over to see Cecil scratching his nose disinterestedly and sighed. "Four. I hadn't had a boyfriend in years when I moved to Night Vale."

"And did you ever...?" Cecil had stopped bothering trying to appear disinterested.

"Have sex with any of them?"

Cecil nodded.

"You know, 'sex' isn't a bad word, you can say it."

Cecil glared.

"Let's just say I didn't learn about gay sex from health class," Carlos muttered as he took the exit for the airport. "But don't worry, none of them could even hold a candle to you. In either the relationship  _or_ the sex department. Stop blushing, if Sony sees you she'll say you're blushing because she's gorgeous, and not only will she tease you mercilessly about it, but her ego doesn't need the boost." He pulled up in front of the doors, finding Sony waiting for them. He popped the trunk open. "You can get it in yourself, right?"

"Car, I don't know if that was an awkward sexual joke or a badly-phrased attempt at making me do work, but either way, I'm not happy about it. And you can load my bag into the trunk yourself, for that comment."

Carlos hugged her. "Like you weren't going to make me do it anyway."

"Can't put a thing past my little brother. Hey, is this the boytoy? Come out here, let me give my brother in law a hug!"

Cecil slowly got out of the car, casting a glance at Carlos.

"It's okay, she doesn't bite," he said good-naturedly as he heaved the suitcase into the car. Cecil glanced nervously at the generous number of teeth that showed in Sony's grin, and Carlos realized that, to a Night Vale citizen, that wasn't just a joke.

Surprising, how easy it was to slip back into the real-world mindset.

"Why are you wearing long sleeves? Night Vale _is_ in the desert, isn't it?"

Carlos looked down at his shirt and realized that he was, in fact, wearing long sleeves. "Honestly, you're inside so much, it doesn't even matter. The air conditioning actually _alleviates_ the heat instead of making it seem worse when you step outside. I've got t-shirts in my bag." He paused. "Ceece, do you  _own_ any short-sleeved shirts?"

"Ah - no," he admitted. "I only really spent time outside to scream into the void."

"Oh, boy, you've snagged a happy one," Sony said dryly. "There's still a Target on the way, we can stop there. We have to stop at Alex's first anyway. He wants to go all at once. Shocking, really. I can't figure out why. Maybe he wants to spend more time giving you the cold shoulder. Maybe he doesn't want to risk being late, and being shown up by his gay brother. I'll be honest, I really don't know."

"Wait - you were serious? Your brother really is - homo - homophobic?" Cecil sounded out the unfamiliar word with some trepidation.

Carlos nodded. Sonya answered. "Alex is one of the biggest dicks on the planet." She paused. "Also, don't say that to his face, he might think you're asking to have gay sex with him, and he might have a heart attack. And that would ruin mom's funeral."

"You don't seem to like him very much," Cecil observed.

"Alex... Alex is my brother, and I don't want him to die, but... he's been an asshole since he was born. Used to try to beat up Carlos at least once a week. Good thing I was there to protect him."

Carlos nodded. "The only reason I survived my childhood was because Sony has legs like a horse's and a right hook that could take out a fully-grown man, let alone a 10-year-old boy."

"He got better as he got older, I should give him credit. He decided that he was above the physical stuff, and resorted to totally ignoring Car whenever they were in the same room. Pissed mom off to no end. She gave him hell for it. Funnily enough, when we grew up and moved out, he was the only one who continued living in the same state as she did. I'd have loved to, but if you're gonna be a journalist in the entertainment industry, California is the place to be, and Arizona is not. And Car went off to Johns Hopkins University, and then went to D.C. for jobs. Alex was the only one who took a job that kept him in-state. Mom wasn't overjoyed about it. And then, six years ago, she fell into a coma, and not a one of us could deal with being the one who pulled the plug. Now she's awake, she's pissed at us all, and ready to go. Just as long as she gets to see us one more time."

"Neither of you seem very put-out about your mother dying," Cecil said carefully, shooting a glance at Carlos. 

"Well, we already went through it, in a way. When she went into a coma, it was like she died. My mother was never silent or still in her entire life, and all of a sudden, all of her bodily functions are being displayed on a screen, and she's not even complaining about it. You can't imagine the depression, the anger, the frustration... no, we moved past her death a long time ago. This is like her coming back to life for a day to say good-bye. It's actually damn good news. No, I'm not sad. I'm happy. I get to be by her side when she dies. I get to speak to her before she dies. This is  _good_."

"She's already had Alex call the funeral home." Sony snorted. "She's preparing her own damn funeral." 

"She's very lucky, to be able to choose the time and manner of her own death," Cecil said quietly, and Carlos remembered him saying something along those lines when the mayor had walked into the Dog Park.

"She's not  _choosing_ so much as making the best of a bad situation. If she had her way, she'd live forever, and she'd be ruling the world by now. But between death and living on machines in a hospital, waiting for visits from far-away children, she'd take death, and she's going to make sure that her funeral is sorted out to her liking so we don't have to do it."

Carlos pulled into the parking lot of the Target. "Do you have shorts?"

"No."

"Have you really always worn long sleeves and pants?"

"Yes. Everyone does."

"He's right, you know. Car, look at yourself, you're wearing long sleeves and pants." 

Carlos rolled his eyes. "I got dressed in the dark. I'd like to remind you that I was awoken at an ungodly hour."

"So was I, and I got dressed just fine."

"All of your clothes are nice. I could pick out clothing from the bottom of your dresser drawers and throw it at you and you'd look fine."

"Thank you!" Sony smirked. "Now. Ceece. Is that really your name? That's a nickname, right? Cecil? Cute name. My brother knows how to pick 'em, he learned from the best. Aw, you're blushing! Is it because I'm pretty? I know it is, you don't have to say so. What are your measurements? Do you know? That's fine, it just means a couple trips to the dressing rooms - my area of expertise!"

"Sony, he only needs enough for a week."

"And they'll fit him for that week."

Carlos let Sony drag Cecil inside. Despite his height, he looked strangely small next to the whirlwind of energy that was Sony. 

He separated from them once they got inside and found the watches. The nice ones were in the case with the rest of the jewelery, as he expected, and an employee explained the differences between the two he was looking at. It was all about the fine way this watch was made, and the quartz in this one, and the gears in that, and Carlos picked the one on the left, because he was left-handed and didn't care at all about the making of the watch, and then bought fifteen extra batteries for it. He took his purchase to the men's section, where he found a pale Cecil standing next to an overjoyed Sony. 

"I have never seen someone get so excited over a pack of t-shirts, a bathingsuit, and three pairs of shorts as you are."

"Well, I've never met anyone who didn't own any t-shirts or shorts or bathingsuits. What did you buy?"

"A watch. Mine's nice, but this one's nicer."

"Well, he's ready to go, aren't you?" 

"I've never seen him look so terrified." And that was true. Cecil might live in a place where hooded figures routinely stole children, but Cecil had never been as stiff and pale as he was now. "It's just my sister."

" _Just_?"

"Sorry, Sony. But you really are like being bludgeoned in the head with an axe."

"That's what I aim for. I'll pay. This was fun." She handed the cashier a credit card and signed the receipt. 

"How far away are we from your brother's house?"

"Twenty minutes?"

"Oh."

Carlos took Cecil's hand. "It'll be okay. You said you could handle it, remember? And if he's too mean, Sony'll punch him in the face for you. Or we could always just take him back to Night Vale with us, see how long he lasts. And Alex isn't really that bad anyway. He just shoots dirty looks and glares at homosexuals. Easily ignored." He saw Cecil rubbing his arms, and remembered the tight grip of tentacles on his waist. Thinking about it now, it wasn't so strange that Cecil didn't carry weapons - he had weapons attached to his body. If he could move his tattoos, he could probably kill Alex with a flick of his wrist. 

Had he come because he thought he could count on the protection of his tattoos?

Sony talked the entire way there. It had always been the best part about her, that she was able to chatter incessantly about anything - it meant that other people could sit with their thoughts, meant that no one felt awkward, alone, left out. And she knew it, too; he'd watched her do it before, watched her go from standing on the sidelines to being the life of the party, being the reason why people were having fun. She knew what she was doing, and she did it well. 

She shut up when Carlos pulled into the driveway. She took her own bag out of the trunk, and handed Cecil's to him. "Honey. Listen. If you're ever uncomfortable or worried, I'm here, all right?"

Cecil nodded.

"Car, I'm starting to think this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't have invited him? I  _do_ like seeing Alex angry, but... Cecil's so..." Sony's whisper trailed off into silence.

"Don't worry. I thought the same thing, and didn't even invite him. He asked to come, and insisted on coming, even when I told him about Alex. We'll leave as soon as mom's funeral is over, if we have to." He pulled his bag out of the trunk.

Sony went first. She didn't bother knocking. "ALEX!" she yelled. "WE'RE HERE!" She moved inside, giving Carlos and Cecil space to enter. Alex came out of the kitchen, and he and Sony shared the most awkward hug imaginable. 

"Hello, Sony... Carlos. And...?" The look he gave Cecil was more judgmental than the Supreme Court's final ruling. 

"Cecil. I'm Carlos's boyfriend." 

Alex appraised him. "So  _you're_ the newest abomination my brother has dragged in."

Sony's glare could have killed. Carlos actually stepped forward. Neither of them had expected such a straightforward judgment. 

" **Yes. I am, in fact, _quite_ the abomination. Would you like me to**   **demonstrate**?" 

Silence settled, thick in the early-morning heat. Cecil was tall, certainly, but he seemed taller than his six feet. He seemed to crackle with electricity, and had Carlos not known better, he would have sworn that he could see the swish of a tentacle under Cecil's white sleeve. 

"That won't be necessary. The guest room is upstairs, the second door on the left. We're leaving in ten minutes." Alex returned to the kitchen. Cecil started his way upstairs. Carlos turned to Sony and realized that he was mirroring her shit-eating grin. 

"And here I was, internally mocking you for picking the most vanilla boyfriend you could find," she muttered.

Carlos snorted. "Cecil is many things, but vanilla is not one of them." He frowned. "Wait. Internally  _mocking_ me?"

"How did you ever become a scientist when it takes you twenty minutes to figure out what someone's just said?"

" **Stop fighting and get up here."**

"Jesus, how does he do that?"

"He has a show on the radio. He always says things with the proper intonation, regardless of what that intonation is."

Cecil was waiting for them at the top of the stairs, eyes still flashing anger and stance still imposing. " **You."** He slapped Carlos. " **Do you always let him talk to you like that**?  **And you."** He jabbed Sony's breastbone. " **Do you always let him talk to Carlos like that?** " He put his hands on his hips. " **You can wait out here until I've changed.** " 

"Why didn't he slap me?" Sony asked indignantly. "Does he think I'm weak because I'm a girl?"

"Ha. No, he probably would have poked me too, but I'm his boyfriend. You're not. Sorry, but you  _do_ have to be a boy in order to be a boyfriend."

She waved him off. "Go get changed in the bathroom. If we're not downstairs in ten minutes, Alex might have an anyeurism."

"At least it would make Cecil happy."

When he left the bathroom, the bedroom door was still shut. He rapped on it. "Ceece? Are you all right? I'm coming in." Like it mattered if Cecil was naked. He'd already seen everything Cecil had to offer. He opened the door. Cecil was sitting on the bed, wearing a grey vee neck t-shirt and shorts that ended at his knees. Carlos had to hand it to Sony, she could dress a guy well. "You should wear that more often."

"It shows my tattoos."

"Just the bit on your arms."

"My legs too."

"You have tattoos on your legs?"

"The backs." He stood and turned around. 

"What is - is that - a hooded figure?" The top was hidden by the shorts, but it was a streak of wispy black up the back of his right leg. Not to mention the thin birch tree that arched up his left leg. "Have I really never seen the back of your legs? And here I was thinking you didn't have anything to hide."

"Well, I didn't hide it on  _purpose_ ," he snapped. "But how well do people take to tattoos, out here?"

"I have no idea. We'll have to find out. Don't worry about it. We're going to a hospital. They see people poop themselves on a daily basis and stick needles into people even more often, I don't think they'll be worried about a guy with tattoos. Although I should warn you, hospitals are where people go to get  _better_ , not where they go when they want to get cancer."

"Then where do they go when they want to get cancer?"

"People in the real world don't  _want_  to get cancer. Come on, Alex is probably waiting. I can show you off."

"I sincerely doubt your brother will be happy to see me."

"Eh, probably not. So what. I can show you off to Sony." 

Cecil took the proffered hand and they found Sonya waiting downstairs in the kitchen with Alex, sitting in the most intense silence that had ever surrounded Sony. "Are we leaving?"

Alex nearly wilted in despair when he saw the purple tentacles that spiraled down Cecil's arms. Sony looked proud. "You look good in that. I picked well. Cool tattoos."

"Told you she'd be happy."

"No, you didn't."

"Oh. Must've just thought it, then."

Cecil led the way out. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good bye Mama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry mom, you were sacrificed so that Cecil could leave Night Vale.

The hospital was crowded and the line was long, but within ten minutes their little group was on their way up to the third floor, Cecil still holding onto Carlos's hand like it was his lifeline and Alex still pointedly looking at anything but them. It had been years since either Sony or Carlos had seen him, and he seemed to have gotten worse. 

They navigated busy hallways and found ward 18. Their mother was in the middle bed, hooked up to more machines than Carlos could count. Her eyes were open, however, and she saw them and smiled. "Glad to see me one more time?" Her voice was rough. She sounded like a chain smoker, despite never having smoked a day in her life. 

"Hi, mom." "Happier than you know." 

"Ha. All my children, brought together in the same place on a day other than Christmas for the first time since you moved out. It's a miracle."

Carlos pulled up a chair and sat by her side. Sony sat on the armrest. 

"Don't sit there, Sonya, it'll break. Come sit on the bed."

"I don't want to disturb any of that," Sony waved a hand at the tubes and wires.

"I'm dying in twenty minutes anyway. Don't worry." She patted an empty space by her legs and Sony sat. "Who's that back there? Not one of my kids, I don't think."

Carlos waved Cecil forward. "Mom, this is Cecil, my boyfriend."

"Bringing one last boyfriend for my approval? Come here, I won't bite." She patted Cecil's hand. "Met my son in D.C., I suppose?"

"Ah - no."

"Mom, I moved almost two years ago. I'm a few hours away, in a little town called Night Vale. It's the most scientifically interesting town in the entire country and, probably, the entire world. It's great. I've got a house there and it's a good job, and it's where I met Cecil. He hosts the main radio show."

"Ah. Cecil, my name is Erika. I know, I know, it's not exactly Mexican, but my mother always liked it, and she got ahold of the birth certificate before my father could. It's good to meet you."

Cecil smiled. "Erika is the name of the angels."

Carlos started. Because Cecil was right, all of the angels in Night Vale went by the name Erika. He'd said so during poetry week. 

"Oh, you're sweet. I like you. Take care of my boy, will you?"

Cecil nodded. 

"I approve of your boyfriend. You've always chosen well. You keep doing your job now, Carlos, and don't keep all that money for yourself, you donate to Johns Hopkins, you thank them for that full scholarship they gave you and show them it was worth every penny, because it was, you're one of their best alumni." She pulled him closer and kissed him on the cheek. "Sonya, Sony darling, you keep on writing. I knew, even when you were little, I said, that girl's got a way with words. She could convince a cuckoo to raise its own child and win a job from a miserly dickhead, I said it, didn't I. And you can. I don't care if you're writing for the entertainment industry instead of the government, you're worth every cent they give you." She hugged Sony and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Don't you cry now, don't you cry. If I'm not, you can't, it's what I always said, remember? If I can put up with it, so can you. You're all just as strong as I am. And you. Alex." She grabbed his wrist with a strength no one could have expected from a dying woman. "You be nice to your brother and sister, all right? My dying wish. Do it. You were always a sweet boy to everyone else, be good to them too. You're the oldest, you've got to take care of them when I'm gone. You can do it. There's a reason why you've gotten every job you've ever wanted and it's because you can do any damn thing you set your mind to, remember? I told you you could. I told you when you were a baby in my arms. And you can." She took a deep breath. "Now call the doctor. I've said what I've got to say and I've got my kids here, I'm ready to go now."

“No need – she’s right here.”

A doctor stepped in. “Are you ready?” She asked kindly.

Erika nodded.

“We’ll come visit your grave,” Sony promised.

“Bullshit. Don’t you dare. You live too damn far away to waste time and money on a rotting sack of bones. If you fly down here to see my grave more often than you flew down here to see me, I will haunt you, don’t think I won’t.”

She gripped Carlos’s hand in hers, and held her other hand open for Alex and Sony. Her breath became a rattle. “You take care of each other. Keep track of each other. I love you all, no matter what,” she rasped. Her mouth kept moving. No sound came out.

“We love you, mom,” Sony whispered.

Erika smiled faintly and closed her eyes. A moment later, with one last beep, the heart monitor went flat, and the Doctor noted the time of death. Carlos felt a hand on his shoulder. Cecil stood behind him.

“Not everyone gets to choose the time of their death, or who’s around them,” he said quietly. “Your mother is a very lucky woman.”

“What do you know about death?” Alex asked harshly. Cecil looked at him silently, and Carlos thought of all the times he’d heard Cecil report a death, of how overwhelmed Cecil had been when Carlos himself had nearly died, of how overjoyed he’d been to find out that not only was Carlos alive, but he wanted to see him, wanted to be with him, had nearly died and had thought of him.

A couple fuzzy hours later, during which Carlos felt an enormous appreciation for Alex’s ability to take charge in any situation, they left the hospital, their mother’s body in the morgue and funeral preparations made. They sat silently in the car, Sony rubbing her eyes, Alex pointedly avoiding conversation, and Carlos resting his head on Cecil’s shoulder, thinking. He was putting together a puzzle, but some of the pieces didn’t fit, and some pieces were missing completely. He turned the pieces over and over in his head, trying them this way and that, trying to figure out how they worked. The problem was, the puzzle was Night Vale, and Night Vale _didn’t_ work. It did make for a good distraction, though.

“Should we go for lunch?” Alex asked as they approached a Ruby Tuesday’s.

“Yes,” Carlos answered, becoming instantaneously aware of his empty stomach. Cecil had to be equally hungry, and unless Sony had eaten at Alex’s house, she probably hadn’t eaten since yesterday either.

They ate slowly, lost in their own separate trains of thought, each equally unknowable and incomprehensible. They switched between understanding that their mother waking up before she died was a gift and not something to cry over, and the understanding that death was permanent and hopeless, and certainly something to cry over.

Sony choked out a laugh. “Remember that time I failed my math final and she slapped me with my report card?”

And it was funny, very funny, funny despite the memory of failure and fear. Funnier still was recounting their mother’s reaction to Carlos’s announcement that he wanted to be a scientist. And suddenly Cecil wasn’t invisible _or_ an intrusion, he was an accepted part of the family, because recounting old stories was a desperate action, but telling new stories was real and understandable and excusable, and Cecil’s questions were well-received, even by Alex.

“You didn’t always want to be a scientist?”

“No – exact opposite, actually. I liked the paranormal – ghosts, werewolves, dragons, monsters that hid in closets. And I’d always ask my mom why something wasn’t real, and she’d say, ‘ _science_.’ And finally I decided I’d had enough of that, and I started paying attention in science class, doing my own experiments, doing extra work on why things like zombies couldn’t exist – no body heat, so they’d freeze in the winter, and they’re dead meat, they’d rot in the summer, and vultures would eat them, and you could stuff them in a lead-lined titanium box until they rotted – and when she loomed over me one day and said ‘And where are you applying to college?’ I said Johns Hopkins, mom, I’m going to be a scientist, and I was honestly worried I’d given her a heart attack, she was so shocked –”

“Not that she was the only one, my dad thought he was kidding for a full week after –”

“I thought Car was going to explode out of frustration –”

“And that’s actually why I went to Night Vale, because any time anyone says anything is ‘scientifically interesting’, it means they’re not sure why it works, and figuring out why impossible things work and why they don’t is basically my specialty, and much better than trying to figure out the precise level of pollution in the air. So really, if my mom had given any answer other than ‘science’, I’d never have gone to Night Vale, and we never would have met. Wonderful woman.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Remember when –”

They reminisced until the waiter started giving them dirty looks. Cecil was shocked that they had to hand the bill to a person. The drive home was much more comfortable than the drive to the hospital, and even Alex didn't seem quite as aloof as usual. Carlos remembered Alex when he was younger, before he'd found out that his brother was gay. Trying to raise his little brother had been a challenge, as Carlos had always been more interested in stories than sports. And Alex had always been friends with the more masculine people, the people who would beat up a kid like Carlos. In all likelihood, his homophobia had started out as trying to protect his little brother, and had mutated to hatred when Carlos refused to be straight. Perhaps his mother's dying wish and their childhood memories had brought back a younger Alex, a protective one instead of an angry one. Not that decades of anger and hatred could be undone in a moment. But a moment was a start. 

"Alex, is there a Staples anywhere around here?"

"Yeah, it's over in the strip mall off the highway. Why, what do you need?"

Carlos sorted through old memories until he found a visual. The town was near the airport, but it was small, with only two highways. One was the out-of-town, and the other was the highway. They had names, probably, but no one knew them. "Paper. Pens. Pencils. Notebooks. Printer ink. Is the grocery store still next to the strip mall? I need pasta and bread. And flour. Tons of flour."

"What, do they not sell that stuff in Night Vale?" Alex asked incredulously.

"No. It's been banned."

"What's been banned?"

"The stuff I just listed."

"Paper is banned?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Cecil?"

Cecil looked up. "Why is paper banned? Ah - people were making anti-government posters. Also, paper is the leading cause of papercuts, and who wants those?"

Sony laughed. "But really, why?"

"No, that's why," Cecil assured her. "There was a big debate over it. Once they promissed to keep napkins around, though, the opposition mostly died down. Of course, the napkins are pretty thin, but if they were thicker, you could write on them."

"And why are pasta and bread banned?" Sony asked in a slightly high-pitched voice.

"Well, after they started -"

"There was an incident," Carlos jumped in, "And that's really all you want to know, trust me."

"An incident?"

"The casualty list was quite long," Cecil said off-handedly. "No one wanted a repeat."

"Over  _pasta_?"

"Wheat and wheat by-products, actually."

" _Wheat and wheat by-products_ _?"_

"There's a reason why I went there."

"Yeah, but I thought you meant it had an interesting level of radiation, not casualty lists due to wheat!"

"You thought I was going to a place with a high level of radiation and didn't say anything?"

"I thought you knew what you were doing!"

"Ok, ok," Alex jumped in. "Look, we're home, stop yelling. Go do your shopping."

"Fine, fine. Cecil, are you coming with me?"

"Yes."

They got right into Carlos's car and drove to Staples. Carlos loaded up a cart with so much paper, so many pens, that the cashier asked if he was supplying an entire company for a year. He bought a 50 pound bag of flour at the grocery store and nearly cleared out the pasta aisle. He was asked if he was feeding an army. Cecil protested half-heartedly that if the City Council ever found out, there was nothing in the world that could protect him, but Carlos had a garage attached to his house for a reason, and that reason was to unload illegal products. He wondered fleetingly if the Secret Police had noticed that his cameras showed him working in the lab while every other camera in town showed him driving away, and resolved to tamper with them before removing anything from his car. With Alex's reluctant permission, he later appropriated a corner of the garage in which to store his purchases, worried that the car might overheat.

Thinking back, he probably should have waited until his last day there to go grocery shopping.

When he emerged from the garage, Sony was standing there in her bathingsuit. 

"Alex is being an ass," she announced, "a bigger one than normal. Despite the fact that it is 802 degrees outside -"

"81 and humid -"

"802 degrees, like I said - and despite the fact that he has a beautiful pool outside, he will not go swimming. I asked Cecil to come swimming and he mumbled something about never having seen a pool before, which is bullshit. Go talk to him and come swimming with me."

"There aren't any pools in Night Vale. If he grew up there, and I think he did, he  _hasn't_ seen any."

"Well then bring him down here and show him."

She didn't believe him. It sounded idiotic - who  _hadn't_ seen a pool? At least on TV? In the backyard of a rich neighbor? A community pool? How could a person go their entire lives without seeing a pool?

Carlos found Cecil folding and unfolding his new bathingsuit. "Ceece, have you really never seen a pool?"

"I thought it was extra drinking water."

" _Never_?"

"Never."

"So you don't know how to swim?"

"What's swimming?"

"I've never had to explain this to anyone before." He sat down on the bed. "I guess it's - it's how you move through water? Except that there are several different ways."

"Can't you just walk?"

"Well, due to water resistance, it's much harder to walk than to swim. Also, if you can't reach the bottom, no."

"Will they laugh at me while I'm learning?"

"Probably."

"You know, you're not very reassuring."

"I'm a scientist. I'm not supposed to be reassuring."

Cecil sighed. "Fine. How do I wear this? What do I put it under? I'm not diving into a  _pool_ in my nice suit, right?"

"No, that's all you wear. Nothing goes over it, nothing goes under it. You could probably wear a shirt, but if you wore one of your new t-shirts in Sony would throw a fit, and you don't have anything that wouldn't drag in the water."

"So they'll see all my tattoos?"

"Yeah."

"What if they don't like them?"

"Well, Sony won't give a shit, and Alex has to have  _something_ to hate or he might explode. So don't worry about it." He dug his bathingsuit out of his bag. "And hey, it could be worse. She could have bought you a speedo." He pulled his shirt over his head.

"A what?"

"Think briefs."

Cecil looked at his bathingsuit, and then flushed bright red. " _People wear those in public_?"

"Yep! Now get changed, I'll be waiting outside."

Cecil came out a couple minutes later, hunched like he was trying to cover as much of his body as possible while still appearing confident. Sony had already pushed Carlos in and smacked him with a noodle, and they were mid-noodle fight when Cecil stepped onto the stairs. "It's cold!"

"No it's not, it just feels like it is. You'll get used to it. Sony, you can't drag him in, he can't swim."

The mischievous gleam in her eyes faded as she complained, "It's only four feet deep, he can stand just fine, he's a giant!"

Cecil took a tentative step down into the pool, up to his hips in water. "So how do you swim?"

Carlos could hear his mom's voice, coming to him from decades into the past. "Floating first. You lie down, and float on top of the water."

Alex came out of the house and nearly dropped his lemonade. "What is _that_?"

Cecil turned. "What is what?"

But Carlos understood. The wings on Cecil's back weren't white, but a glowing cloud of rainbow feathers.

The frontal view didn't seem to make things easier. In fact, the maze of tentacles that could come alive in a moment only seemed to make things worse. "Good  _God_ \- what - what possessed you to -"

"Actually, I've only been possessed once in my life - no, make that twice. There was the glow cloud, but I don't really remember that, and there was that fear that passed through town -"

"He means figuratively," Carlos interjected. "Don't make fun of his tattoos, he's had them forever."

"Well, not really  _forever_ , I got this one just this May," he pointed to the tree down his leg, "And I got the wings nearly two years ago now -"

"Cecil - wait, you got it in May?"

"Yes, why?"

"I... don't know." He frowned. What had tugged at the edges of his mind? Another piece of the puzzle seemed to be forming there, but it wouldn't come into focus. Something about time - but he knew time was wrong in Night Vale, he didn't need more evidence for  _that_. This was  _new_. What  _was_ it?

"Floating," Sony said. "Back to floating. You have to relax. If you get tense, you will sink. Do not get tense."

"That's not very relaxing."

"I don't care."

There followed two hours of teaching Cecil how to swim. Carlos found his mother in the whole process, supporting Cecil's back, promising not to let him sink, slowly letting go, watching him float across the shallow end of the pool and having a heart attack when he realized no one was holding him up - it was Erika teaching him how to swim, all over again. And Sony and Alex saw it too, he could tell, from the times Sony looked away, and the times Alex reminded Cecil to use his legs when doggy paddling, and the gentleness with which they all corrected his technique. By the time they got out of the pool, Cecil could float, tread water, doggy paddle, and do the breaststroke. After realizing that the word 'breaststroke' made Cecil turn lobster-red, Sony said it at every opportunity, and began making up opportunities to say it. Carlos told her to can it. 

Alex made tacos for dinner, even toasting up a couple soft shells for 'the white kid'. Cecil insisted on trying one of the hard shells, barely getting halfway through before he gave up and let Carlos show him how to make taco salad. Cecil didn't have to know that none of them had eaten 'taco salad' since the age of five, by which point they could neatly eat a taco blindfolded.

That night, Cecil fell asleep within minutes. Carlos felt vaguely resentful that physical exhaustion could put some people straight to sleep.

An unknown amount of time later, he gave up, and went outside.

This town had been his childhood. This house was fifteen minutes away from the one he'd grown up in. His old high school was around the corner. He could find his way to any address in town without getting lost. And yet, the only time it had ever felt like home, had been in the dark.

The first time he'd done this, his dad had turned on all the lights and had nearly called the police to report him missing. After a month, his mom oiled the hinges, so he could get in and out without waking anybody up. When summer came around, Sony had left a bottle of bug spray outside. And when it got cooler out, a blanket had mysteriously appeared next to his chair, and Alex had avoided him for a week. Now, of course, none of this was true. No one panicked. The door shrieked in the silence. And there was no bug spray or blanket to protect him from the mosquitos. But all the same, Arizona still felt more welcoming now than it had while the sun was up.

He sat in the chair and watched the stars above him. He had never quite understood people who said they 'wheeled in the heavens above' - the earth was moving, not the stars, and it certainly wasn't moving fast enough to be observed. He didn't understand why people didn't accept the awe-inspiring stars for what they were - enormous balls of fiery gas, giving off heat and light for miles untold, warming planets and bringing life to organisms. Why did they need to be running around in circles?

The shriek behind him, along with a muttered "Alex has got to oil these fucking things", alerted him to Sony's presence. "I brought you a coke," she said, handing him a cold can. He listened to the _hiss_ of the bubbles escaping as he opened it. "I have a couple questions for you, and I want to know the answers. The real ones, not some evasive crap that you want to give me."

"How'd you know I was out here?"

"When was the last time you went to bed before 3?"

"Actually, I don't sit outside in Night Vale."

"Why not?"

"I'm tired?"

"You're tired now, it doesn't mean you're asleep. But it doesn't matter. What I want to know is: what _is_ Night Vale?"

"A town in the desert."

She huffed. If Carlos concentrated hard enough, he could hear her rolling her eyes. "Cecil's not normal. I'm not saying I don't like him, I'm not saying he's not a good guy, I'm not telling you not to date him, but he is  _not normal_. Not at  _all_. I know he tried to keep his bangs flat while we were in the pool, but I saw what he's got on his forehead. Who the hell gets a third eye tattooed on their forehead? And then keeps it covered up? And some of the things he says. You shouldn't have had to remind him that Alex was only talking figuratively about being possessed. And what's up with that ban on literally everything that makes life worth living? What is that?"

Carlos waited a moment to make sure she was finished. "Night Vale is... not normal. Cecil isn't normal. And I don't know what Night Vale is. It's like something out of a sci-fi movie. It's like aliens are taking over the earth and using Night Vale as their testing site. There are monstrosities that roam the town... there are woods. In a desert. Entire forests that appear out of nowhere. Billboards that appear, out of nowhere, built right through a living dog, a dog that doesn't even seem to notice. Cecil works at a radio station. In the men's bathroom, there is a hovering cat. Which had kittens. Which are also hovering in the men's bathroom. And more, so much more, I can't even describe it..." he drank down half his coke in one go.

"And you don't know what it is?"

"No."

"What do you think it is?"

"How do you know I have a hypothesis?"

"Of course you do."

So he told her. She sat, silently, and drank down her entire drink. "Really glad I spiked that now," she muttered. "What makes you think  _that_?"

So he told her about all the bits of evidence, all the puzzle pieces, including the one he'd picked up in the pool. "But that's only part of the problem. Where did it come from? Why? What's it doing? Does Cecil know anything?"

Sony sighed and shook as chills swept over her. "I'm going to sleep. Tell me if you think of anything new."

"Yes, ma'am," Carlos promised, and sat outside for half an hour before finishing his coke and going inside and upstairs. He slid between the sheets, and felt one of Cecil's arms wrap around his waist. Cecil muttered something unintelligible that sounded annoyed. Carlos found sleep in Cecil's faint puff of breath against his neck, and dreamed forgotten dreams of desert wastelands and dying stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know they all seem rather callous about their mother’s death, but I was basing this off of the death of my great-grandmother. She was very lively when she was younger, and she always had something to do, but she had a heart attack at the age of 80, and ended up depressed and on so much drugs that she was essentially a vegetable. When she died, it was considered almost a blessing, and although it was sad, we were happy that she didn’t have to live like that anymore. Her own daughter, my grandma, didn’t cry, because it was like ‘she died years ago’, and this was just an affirmation of that. I felt that this would be something like that.  
> Also: breaststroke.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut. More people. Explanations of Alex’s less-than-evil behavior. More smut. Enjoy.

When Carlos awoke, it was to the glare of sunlight through his eyelids. He became aware of feeling next, and understood that his fingers were entangled in someone else's - Cecil's, of course, he was with Cecil - and that something heavy - a leg? - was resting on his knee. He blinked himself awake to see Cecil, inches away from his face, and asleep. 

He carefully untangled himself and stood. He still hadn't unpacked his bag, and rummaged through it for non-lab coat clothing. 

He heard the rustle of sheets behind him. "Where did you go last night?"

"Where did I go?"

"You left. I thought you went to the bathroom, but you were gone to long." Carlos turned to see Cecil frowning. "Right?"

"I went outside. It was a good night for stargazing."

"You can see the stars?"

"Of course. You can see the stars everywhere, as long as it's not cloudy. Except in Night Vale."

"Are there lots of them?"

"Tons, more than you could ever count. And the longer you look, the more you see." Carlos grinned at Cecil's astounded expression. "You have got to get rid of that void above Night Vale."

"The void isn't exactly my fault," Cecil grouched. 

The mattress creaked under Carlos as he put his arms around his boyfriend. "I know. I just think, of all the people who could do something about it, it would be you." 

"I'm the Voice of Night Vale, not its saviour."

"Yeah, I know. Maybe I just like to think you can do more than you can."

"I'm not _useless_ ," he grumped, "I just don't have power over everything that goes on. And I don't have any power over the void."

"I know, I know," Carlos reassured him with a kiss on his temple. "Sometimes I forget you're not all-powerful."

Something smacked into the door. "Shut up, you're keeping me awake," Sony yelled groggily from across the hallway.

"It's 9:30," Cecil said with a glance at the clock.

"She likes her beauty sleep."

"I guess no one else is up, then," Cecil said, with his head cocked to one side. "I don't hear anyone downstairs..."

Carlos looked at Cecil, with his long, thin face tilted, exposing an expansive amount of his skin. His hair wasn't perfectly placed to hide his tattoos - it was pushed to the side, actually, having fallen out of its coif overnight. He had slept in his boxers, leaving most of his long torso exposed, the tattoos across it unnaturally still. His boxers covered the interesting parts, but long legs that had been tangled in sheets up until a moment ago sat uncovered over the side of the bed. Carlos planted a compulsive kiss on Cecil's neck, and dragged his lips down across his chest.

"You had better have lube-"

"Don't need any. Hush." He pushed Cecil down onto the mattress.

"Condoms -"

"Not for what I have in mind. Now, be quiet, you don't want Sony or Alex to hear." Cecil's hard on nearly fell flat at the reminder of Sony in the room across the hall, but some well-placed fingers and a demanding tongue had him up and ready to go again within minutes. He pulled down the dark blue boxers carefully, nearly sighing at the sight of the well-formed dick waiting for him. He fitted his mouth over the head and slowly slid down. He could feel Cecil shuddering underneath him, but heard nothing. Pity. He'd have liked to listen to Cecil moan his approval. 

He pulled up more slowly than he'd gone down, tongue pushing, feeling every little jolt that went through Cecil's body. When Cecil spasmed and let a tiny whine escape, he pushed, feeling Cecil tense. He glanced up to see that Cecil had one hand fisted in the sheets and the other stuffed in his mouth, silencing himself. Carlos memorized that spot, getting to know it intimately before moving up to find a ridge of nerves here, a sensitive spot there. When his mouth came off with a pop, Cecil nearly kicked him. So he went back down, eventually returning to the first spot he'd found. Seconds later, Cecil jerked and came, a hissing noise escaping his mouth as he desperately tangled his long fingers in Carlos's curly hair. Carlos swallowed it all, and pulled his mouth off the now-limp dick.

Something else hit their door. "Bastards. Waking me up at 9:30 and then going back to sleep? Don't you dare. If I'm up, you'd better be up too."

"We're awake," Carlos called. "Perfectly silent. Good job." He kissed Cecil lightly then hopped out of bed, finished dressing, and grabbed his toothbrush. I'll be back in a minute," he said cheerfully as he left. He tripped over one of the shoes lying in the hallway. "If you scuff one of the doors, Alex is going to break your feet, Sony."

"He'd better not. Do you know how much money I've spent on shoes?" Her door opened and she stumbled out with a bag of toiletries. "You can throw those on the floor."

"I was just going into the -" 

The bathroom door shut behind her. 

"SONY."

"You can use my bathroom," Alex yelled from downstairs.

"Thanks," Carlos shouted back. 

Alex's bathroom was as sparse as the rest of his house. Carlos remembered being here, six years ago, before Alex and his fiancee, Tansy, had split up. Their daughter, Myra, had been 13 when Tansy left, tired of living in a town in which the most exciting thing was the nearby airport. Myra had stayed behind for school, and lived with her mom during the summer, over in New York. When Tansy had lived here, things had been more colorful, more lively; she had installed the pool, and called Carlos when Erika had fallen into her coma. She, like so many others here, had been nice to Carlos, but treated him like he was a different species. She was supposed to be flying down today. Where she was staying was as yet unknown. Hopefully not here, they had all the rooms full. Unless she was sharing with Sony? Was there more than a single twin-sized bed in that room?

They had pancakes for breakfast, and Alex was once more silent and moody. He dawdled over his plate, and insisted on washing up. His phone buzzed. Carlos glimpsed the name before it shut off again. "Tansy texted you."

"What did she say?"

The phone had no passcode. "The plane just touched down. If you haven't left yet, you probably should."

Alex sighed. "I'm going to be late."

"Do you want someone to go with you...?"

" _No_. No." He shook his head. "I'll leave now and tell her I hit traffic." He slipped his shoes on, grabbed his keys and was out the door.

Cecil blinked. "Who's Tansy?"

Sony and Carlos exchanged glances. "Tansy is..."

 

Nearly an hour later, they heard the garage door open. Tansy burst through the door. "Carlos! Sony! And you must be Cecil." She hugged them all. Carlos and Sony had tried to prepare Cecil, but they had evidentally not done a very good job, and Carlos felt an irrationally strong wave of protectiveness when he noticed how shocked Cecil looked. Cecil, who had taken months to bring up dinner and weekend plans, who had spent months blushing at something so simple as holding hands - Cecil was not used to being hugged by complete strangers. And Tansy, unlike Sony, did not have the ability to put people at ease and make them feel adequate. On the contrary, Tansy somehow put out the vibe that she was being immensely generous in condescending to talk to others. She was beautiful, certainly, but even had Carlos been straight he could never have found her seductive. Alex had, and for a time, he had actually been enough for her - something about his steadiness and loyalty had attracted the woman who couldn't settle down, he supposed. But that same loyalty had led to Alex's insistance that they remain in town, and had eventually torn them apart.

"You know, I'm engaged to be married -" she showed them all an enormous diamond ring - "We're living in an appartment in the city now, I can't wait until Myra comes home so I can show her - where is she?" She looked around, like she'd somehow missed Myra hiding behind a door somewhere. "Still at her boyfriend's house? Well, I was the same way when I was her age - when is she coming over?"

The front door opened. "Dad?"

"We're in here," Alex called. 

Myra came into the living room. She had gotten an interesting mix of genes, considering Tansy's own mixed heritage, and had the striking looks that only someone with such a melting pot of ancesters could manage. High cheekbones, tanned skin, straight dark hair, and deep blue eyes from Tansy's German grandfather meant that she hadn't been left in peace since she'd entered eighth grade. She hadn't inherited all of her mother's personality, inheriting the ability to be loud and overbearing without actually having to be. She'd gotten enough of Alex's personality that, despite the looks that she clearly hadn't gotten from her Mexican father, she still reminded Carlos irresistably of his brother. 

"Hi, mom," She gave her mother a hug. "How's - Toby?"

Her slight hesitation was rewarded by her mother talking right over her. "Oh, Tony's wonderful, can't wait to meet you, such a shame he couldn't come down with me but he had work of course, we're living in a new appartment now, good thing you don't have much stuff there, made it much easier to move - don't worry, we didn't move much of your stuff around, we want you to be able to set it up -"

"Ma - I was thinking - I want to cut the summer short, come back here a week or two early, maybe -" She faltered. "You know... Pete's here, and I wouldn't want to leave Dad alone for so long after Nana died..."

"Oh, of course, we wouldn't want Pete to have to suffer for so long without you -" And she swept her daughter upstairs in a flurry of conversation.

"If she touches my stuff," Sony whispered, "I will kick her out onto the street."

Carlos chuckled. Alex sighed. "Thank god for Myra. I don't want her staying too long down there - I've heard interesting stories about Tony - and I had no idea how to tell Tansy... but Myra knows how to do it, she always has. I never would've thought to bring up her boyfriend."

"You're really letting her stay with her boyfriend?" Sony plopped down on the couch. 

"I don't have much of a choice. Tansy's sharing your room, by the way, Sony." Sony scowled. "Well, I can't put her in with Carlos and Cecil, and she's  _not_ staying in my room, so she's with you. But yeah, Myra's staying with Pete. She picked a good guy. I trust him."

"Really?"

"Not half as far as I could throw him. But that's still more than I trust most of the kids in this town, so yes."

"Ya know what," Carlos said thoughtfully, "I think this shows that you've matured, Alex. A few years ago, you would have specifically put her in with Cecil and me, just in the hopes that she would annoy me straight."

Alex flushed. "Yeah... about that..."

"It's okay. You're being good to Ceece and that's really all that matters."

"I  _am_ in the room, you know," Cecil muttered.

"No, really. I expected to hate you, when you got here, I really did. But I just... don't have the energy for it anymore. And mom... well, I figured I may as well try not to be cruel. And it's... not as hard as I thought it would be. And I'm... sorry."

Silence followed his apology. 

"Wait, so you technically stopped hating me a while ago? You didn't even call me when mom woke up, Sony did!"

Alex grimmaced. "I know. I told you, I didn't want to approve of you, but... yeah, a few years ago, when Myre started dating, I guess I started thinking more along the lines of... well, guys are all awful, and if you're  _choosing_  to date them, you're already punishing yourself more than I ever could, so why bother?"

Carlos headed for the kitchen. "I really don't know if that's offensive or not. But I'll take it in the spirit in which it was meant." He popped open a coke. "A toast. To brothers being worn down into acceptance." No one else had a drink. Carlos drank anyway, and wished there was alcohol in it. He could hear Tansy chattering away up above. Whereas Sony talked to make people feel included, Tansy talked to keep other people from speaking. 

Sony seemed to be thinking the same way, and found vodka in Alex's liquor cabinet. 

"It's not even 11 yet," He said quietly. "What are you doing?"

"I have to share a room with a walking mouth. I'm numbing the pain. If I start early, maybe it'll be gone by the time I have to go to sleep."

"Is there even another bed in there?"

"A blow-up mattress. And if she thinks I'm sleeping on that tonight, she can go fuck herself." She downed her entire drink in one go, swayed a little, and nodded. "Eh, she's only here for one night, what harm can it do?" She tossed the can in the garbage. "Then again, maybe I'm a selfish little bitch, and I'll just move her after she falls asleep. She's a twig, she can't be _that_  heavy. And I mostly remember that she sleeps like a log and wears an eye-mask to sleep." She reentered the living room, showing no signs that the soda she'd just drank had been a quarter vodka. Sony could hold her liquor like few others Carlos had ever met. She'd been drinking their dad's beer since she was twelve.

Tandy moved like a hurricane from room to room, telling them all about the recent happenings in New York and what her neighbors were like and how the setting sun caught her ring  _just so_ and taking Myra out shopping for a few hours of blessed silence and returning in a whirlwind. 

Tansy had them all cornered in the living room until 10 o'clock that night.

Sony broke the endless chatter. "I'm going to sleep now. G'night, all."

Alex got up. "Myra, are you going back to Pete's?"

Her fingers flew over the keyboard on her cell phone. "He'll be here in 5."

Cecil looked uncertainly at Carlos. "I guess we're going too -"

"No, I've got something to show you." Carlos grabbed his hand and pulled him up.

"What is it?" 

"It's outside."

Alex's brow furrowed as he tried to remember seeing anything outside. Sony shrugged at him. "I want to see this, too."

"You've seen it before."

"What is it?"

" _Stars_."

Cecil followed him outside, Sony and Alex following almost as an afterthought. It was a clear night, cloudless and dry, and the stars shone brightly in the deep blue sky. Cecil's eyes went wide. "You used to see that every night?" He gasped.

"Yep."

"Why did you give it up?"

"What, do they not have stars in Night Vale?" Sony remarked dryly. 

"No."

"What?"

Carlos waved her into silence, too busy pointing out constellations to answer. He knew the night sky better than he knew the back of his own hand. The fact that it didn't exist in Night Vale had nearly been a dealbreaker; going outside his first night only to remember that the void existed during the night as well as the day had nearly driven him out before he'd been there 24 hours. "That one there is the brightest one you'll see, this time of year..." 

Sony swore. "Tansy's not downstairs anymore - she took my damn bed!"

Cecil didn't even glance at her. He stood, head tilted backwards, staring up at the stars that had fascinated Carlos for so long. He liked the thought that one of those stars up there might have a chunk of rock orbiting it, a chunk of rock that might hold other people, other species, new and unknown plants and objects that Carlos could study and understand. And he could help other people understand Earth, too, teach them about human biology while they taught humans about alien biology. 

Now, of course, he had found Night Vale, which was chock full of things he didn't understand. But just the same, he liked the thought that even now, people from another planet were on their way here. 

"I'm gonna go take a shower, Ceece."

"Mmhmm." 

Sony peeked out from her bedroom when he passed. "Carlos," she hissed, "C'mere, I need you to help me move her. She's a dead weight."

Carlos tip-toed in to find that Tansy was no longer on the bed, but lying on the floor. 

"She sleeps like a fucking rock, but she might wake up if I start dragging her across the floor," Sony explained. "You get the legs, I'll get the arms."

He picked up Tansy's legs and Sony grabbed under her armpits. Two steps later, she was settled comfortably on the blow-up mattress, and Sony had such a big grin on her face, he almost thought it was Christmas morning. "Oh, this is priceless," she whispered, pulling out her phone and taking a picture. The flash went off, and Carlos winced. "Don't worry, I took a picture before too, and she didn't wake up then either. Good night." 

Carlos left her to her non-blow-up mattress and turned on the shower. The water was hot - considering the heat of the day, he probably should have taken a cold shower, but hot water never really lost its allure. 

Minutes later, the bathroom door opened and shut.

"Hello? Sony, I swear to god, if you think you can just -"

"It's not Sony." The shower curtain swung open to reveal Cecil, who stepped into the shower. "I didn't get to pay you back for this morning," he said, pressing Carlos back against the shower wall, one hand trailing up and down his ribcage. "And I don't particularly like being in people's debt."

He slid down and trailed kisses down Carlos's dick. Carlos felt his heart pounding, his breath coming in short gasps. By the time Cecil actually put his mouth over the head and sucked, Carlos was having trouble standing. "I was - so nice - let you lie down -"

"Mmhmm," Cecil hummed.

"Not - helping -"

Cecil's teeth grazed gently over the ridge of his head, and then went back down. Two of his fingers curled gently into Carlos's asshole, pressing inside and moving around. And that was it, that was all Carlos could take, and there was no point in trying to last any longer - he came with a stiffled yell, biting into his arm to keep from waking anyone up.

And then Cecil was gone, probably to curl up around a pillow and wonder if he'd done the right thing. Indeed, when Carlos emerged from the shower, he found Cecil hugging Carlos's pillow - probably not due to sentiment, but the fact that there were no other pillows around. He tugged his pillow free, waking his partner up.

"Mmm?"

"Shh. Go back to sleep. You stole my pillow."

"Oh. Just you." Cecil curled into Carlos's chest.

"Just me? Is that supposed to be an insult?" Carlos murmured, but Cecil had already dropped back off to sleep. "You little moron," he muttered. "What am I going to do with you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as may be obvious, I also know very little about stars. I can identify Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, and I’m pretty sure that neither one is up during May, so sorry for not going into more detail.  
> Also, sorry to anyone reading this who isn’t straight and has trouble with family. Alex mellowed out somewhere between the time when I conceived of him and now, and isn’t really an example of familial hatred anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mama’s funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So maybe the whole not-waking-up thing is a little implausible, but I grew up watching Parent Trap, and they moved that poor woman’s entire mattress down into a goddamn lake and she didn’t wake up, so I’m allowed to move Tansy from bed to bed.

Carlos awoke early the next morning, and lay in bed waiting for the sun to come up. It was peaceful there; Tansy was still asleep and silent, Sony wasn't throwing shoes at the door, Alex was making no noise at all - although he never had - and Cecil had his head laying across Carlos's arm. He couldn't feel his hand, and had a feeling that it had been that way for a while, but no matter. 

Not an hour later, he heard the click of a door. The floor creaked. Alex was awake. 

Cecil rolled over, and Carlos's hand turned to static as blood rushed to it. 

 _Thunk_.

" _What the_   _fuck?_ "

Cecil sat straight up, almost like he'd been awake for hours. "What was that?"

"I think I know," Carlos said with a grin as he stood and opened the door. 

Tansy's voice came through, loud and clear. "Why am I on the blow-up mattress?"

"You fell asleep on it," Sony said in the innocent voice of a five-year-old caught nicking candy.

"No, I did not!"

Alex appeared at the top of the staircase. "What's going on?"

"Sony and I moved Tansy last night. Now shh, I'm listening."

"You - you - you  _did_ something, moved me, I don't know -"

"How could I have moved you from one bed to the other without you noticing?" Sony sounded like she almost believed the lie herself.

"I - I don't know -"

"Are you telling me that you honestly wouldn't have noticed someone picking you up, dragging you across the floor, and putting you on a different bed?"

"Well -"

The door opened. Sony winked at Carlos. "You don't have to be so accusatory," she shouted over her shoulder. She grabbed a sock as it fell out of her hands and marched into the bathroom with more dignity than such a lying little shit should have had. 

Tansy flew out of the room, hair a wild tangle and pajamas a twisted mess.

"What happened?" Carlos asked.

"I - that damn bed wasn't fully inflated, and I rolled to the side, and fell off! And I don't know why I was on the thing, I know for a  _fact_ that I fell asleep on the real bed - did she take the bathroom already?"

"You can use mine," Alex said magnanimously. "Just don't make a mess."

"Don't make a mess," she muttered as she walked away. "I lived here for fifteen goddamn years and used that bathroom every day, and he tells me not to make a mess."

"Well, you usually left it in quite a state of disarray, and you haven't lived here in four years, so..."

The bathroom door slammed shut. 

Sony emerged, hair newly braided, wearing a black pantsuit. "Sorry, Alex, but she took my bed."

"I always told her she slept like a log. She never believed me."

"Wait - Sony, you told me that it takes you half an hour, minimum, to get ready in the morning? I always had to get up twenty minutes early if I wanted to get in the bathroom at all before school!" Carlos gaped at her.

"Well, I have to take advantage of the quiet time before Tansy gets out, don't I?" Sony flicked her braid over her shoulder. "What time are we leaving?"

"At 11."

"Right."

Alex was already dressed, in a long-sleeved black shirt and black pants. 

Carlos thought of the suit that awaited him and grimmaced. He much preferred t-shirts and jeans and lab coats. Suits didn't suit him. 

Cecil blushed furiously upon seeing him in it and told him he looked lovely. Cecil himself wore black pants with a grey shirt. Carlos kissed him and told him that he looked perfect too, which did not help with the blushing situation. Tansy fawned over them both, calling them 'doll' and 'darling', and ignored Sony all together. Sony herself looked perfectly happy with this arrangement, and pleased at having brought it about.

They left at precisely 11 o'clock, thanks to Alex's minor obsession with time and timeliness. The funeral home was tastefully decorated, with muted brown walls and deep red accents. Erika's coffin sat open against the back wall. Carlos knew that people would mutter comfortingly that 'she could just be sleeping', but he knew better than to think the same; his mother had never even  _slept_ quietly. Had he ever even  _seen_ her sleep? Whenever he had a nightmare, he would run into her room to find her already awake. He had never gotten up earlier than she had. When he stayed outside until midnight was long gone, he would hear her whisper good-night from her bedroom as he passed. She was not the kind of person who could exist long in a state of silence. Maybe that was why she had come out of her coma after so long; after waiting unrewarded for one of her children to put her out of her misery, she had opened her eyes to tell them she was tired of being quiet. 

The owner of the funeral home was talking to Alex. He'd known Erika for a long time, and had bought the white roses that lay in her hands with his own money, insisting that it was the least he could do. 

Sony and Myra were discussing the latest James Bond movie - Carlos gathered that they were both big fans of Daniel Craig. Not that he could blame them. He had watched  _Skyfall_ at least thirty times; Daniel Craig was a very, very good looking man. 

This left Tansy alone, and she seemed to feel that intruding on Carlos and Cecil was the best thing to do. 

"-And isn't it just the saddest thing, that the poor woman was only awake for a few hours before she made the doctors pull the plug? God, if it was me, I'd have told them to keep the damn thing on, do whatever surgeries they wanted, use me as a test subject for new drugs, just keep me  _alive_ , death is not my thing, I just can't handle the idea of not living anymore, I mean yeah, maybe there's life after death, but maybe there's not, and anyway, if there is, there's either heaven or hell, and heaven sounds boring, and hell sounds painful, and I am much more about the fun and painless life, death is the worst thing that could happen to me -"

"There are worse things than death," Carlos interjected.

"What could be worse than death?" She asked in a voice that dripped with annoyance.

He shrugged "I have no idea. It sounded good when Dumbledore said it."

"So nothing. Well -"

"Oh, I don't know," Cecil said blandly. "I can think of one thing that's worse than death - having your ears talked off by someone who's discussing life and death without having the slightest idea of the meaning of either." He smiled sweetly at Tansy. "Don't you agree?"

The insult flew right over Tansy's head. "Yes, well -"

The door opened. Carlos glanced at the clock above the fake fireplace. 11:45 precisely. "I'm afraid we'll have to continue this conversation later, Tansy," Carlos interrupted smoothly. "It seems we've got guests."

People Carlos hadn't seen in years arrived. Some old childhood friends, lots of old childhood enemies, and his first boyfriend made an appearance; his mother had had an effect on most people in the town, and many of them had been genuinely sad to see her go. 

Carlos got stuck talking to his old neighbor, Mrs. Landry. "Such a  _shame_ ," she rasped meaningfully, "that Erika had to go with only one grandkid in the world."

"Mrs. Landry," he explained politely, "I'm not the one to discuss children with. I'm still gay."

"Yes, but I keep hoping you'll come to your senses." 

Carlos grabbed Cecil as he edged away. "Did I introduce you to my boyfriend? Mrs. Landry, this is Cecil Baldwin. Ceece, this is Mrs. Landry. She used to be my neighbor, when I was a kid. She's a librarian."

He saw Cecil's eyes widen. "That's - interesting."

"They let her out specifically for the funeral," he added, for his own entertainment.

"Haha, boy, very funny," she said in a voice like shifting gravel. "I remember the time you covered my house in toilet paper. If you're not careful, I'll drag you down to the library, there are some books that need sorting and my eyes don't work as well as they used to." She disappeared off into the crowd.

"They let librarians run free?" Cecil asked in a high-pitched whisper. 

"I told you, librarians are normal people out here. I was joking, about that whole 'letting her out for the funeral' thing."

"She sounded like a librarian," he said, keeping an eye on Mrs. Landry at all times.

"She used to smoke two packs a day."

"How did she light her cigarettes? From the fires she set in the hair of young children?"

"I don't know if you're joking, so I'll laugh. Haha. Very funny."

"Carlos Trevino," came a drawling voice. 

Carlos felt a creeping dread in his stomach. He knew that voice. "Parker." He turned toward the sound of the voice, surreptitiously pushing Cecil away. "How are you doing?"

"Eh, between girlfriends right now. Not that it matters for mini Parker," he winked, "but still, the apartment's quiet and the bathroom's clean. Can't complain."

"Did you really drive over for my mom's funeral? I was under the impression that you lived a good five hours away."

"Well, I was down here visiting my old man, and when I heard Miz Trevino's funeral was the next day, I extended my stay. Couldn't hurt to see my best friend, could it? And his little gay brother too." He clapped Carlos on the shoulder.

"Carlos?"

The dread worsened. _Ex boyfriend._  "Evan! Good to see you!"  

"Hey, was that your new boyfriend I saw hanging around Sony? He looks like your type, and I've never seen him in town before." Even's voice said that he'd love to meet the new guy, but his eyes said that he remembered being dumped. 

Carlos glanced around and found Cecil standing next to Sony, a few yards behind Parker, and throwing worried glances in Carlos's direction. "Yeah, that's Cecil. I didn't realize I had a type, though." Even himself was short, Mexican, untattooed, and short-haired. The only thing he had in common with Cecil was that he was gay.

"Of course you do!" Parker said, a looming presence in front of Carlos.

Evan shot a look at the ex-basketball player, but chose to ignore him. "He's got a lot of tattoos."

"Looks a little girly to me. More girly than you ever were, Garcia, huh?" He gave Evan a light tap that could have taken down a horse. "But then, little Carlos always did have a thing for the girly ones. Like he's gay just to make a statement. Not that he was ever very manly himself."

"I'm sorry, Sony sent me to grab Carlos." Cecil's sweet, soothing, melted-dark-chocolate voice was the most welcome thing Carlos had heard all day. "She seems to be worried. I told her there wasn't a problem, but she insisted." 

Sony was watching them with a steely glint in her eye that said that if anyone dared make trouble at her mother's funeral, faces were going to be smashed. 

"So you're the replacement," Evan said, courageously speaking over Parker. 

"Well, you know what they say, out with the old and in with the new. And, of course, sometimes an upgrade is available, and it would be a shame to fall behind, wouldn't it?"

"Brave words, from the man hosting a radio show," Carlos murmured. He doubted Cecil had heard him. 

Cecil gripped Carlos's arm, like an angry mother leading her screaming child away from the scene of a temper tantrum, and he began walking away. 

"No, no, no! You wouldn't deprive me of my favorite homo, would you?" Parker had a vicious grip on Cecil's own arm. Alex finally noticed the growing conflict, and began inching his way over, trying not to disturb the crowds of the unaware. 

"Yes, yes I would."

"But there's no fun in that!" 

Perhaps the line had been drawn in the sand some time ago. Perhaps it was new. Perhaps it was visible only to Cecil, who had never heard of homophobia and never been its object before. Perhaps Parker knew what he was doing. What  _was_ clear was that, at some point in time, by someone, there had been a line drawn - a line that separated those who worried needlessly about homosexuality affecting the well-being of their children, and those who were more interested in the unchallenged torment they could cause. And Parker had just crossed that line. And, wonder of all wonders, Cecil's third eye flew open. Vividly purple, preternaturally bright, ominously focused, it and Cecil's faded purple eyes glared at Parker, the object of their disgust. " **Perhaps not. I _do_ , however, find it very fun to pull the intestines of my challengers out through their stomachs. Shall we have some fun?**"

Parker's grip on Cecil's arm must have loosened, because Cecil dragged Carlos away, third eye shut once more. Few of the guests seemed to have noticed. Evan had disappeared into the crowd, long before the door swung shut behind Parker. Mrs. Landry was staring them down over the top of her glasses. Sony's eyes were wider than dinner plates. Alex appeared frozen.

"What was-?"

"Alex! Why haven't they started the funeral ceremony yet?" Carlos hissed.

"Because half the people here haven't seen each other in years, and Mom's death wasn't unexpected or shocking to anyone, and was hardly even  _sad_? What did your boyfriend just  _do_?"

"I'll explain later. Start the service." 

The service was nearly tearless, but respectfully silent. They all said a few words about their mother. Myra was content to sit with Pete and say nothing; she had been young when her Nana had fallen into a coma, and while they had talked a little when Erika had first woken up, Myra hardly felt qualified to make a speech. That was the excuse she had given. Truthfully, if she'd inherited enough of her father's personality, she was probably the last person who wanted to give a speech, and the last person who  _should_ be up in front of a crowd of people. Carlos, on the other hand, was grateful to drag out his speech for a few minutes; Cecil might not have been able to strangle Carlos with his tentacles, but he seemed to be oozing tangible darkness.

He held it in, fortunately, until they'd gotten in the car after burying Erika next to her husband in the graveyard outside the funeral home, which was situated right next to the church. 

"You-!" His voice rose to a screech.

Carlos winced. "Can we talk about something else? Like your third eye. I mean, I was under the impression that it could only open if your other eyes were closed, but -"

"Didn't even try standing up for yourself-!"

"And it shouldn't have been able to move at all, we're not in Night Vale -"

"Didn't even back me up-!"

"Some sort of defense mechanism, maybe -"

"If I hadn't been there-!"

Alex had shrunk down in the driver's seat as far as he could without impeding his view of the road. Sony was examining her nails, and appeared very interested in a nonexistant hangnail.

"But why the eye, why not the tentacles, they do something other than look terrifying -"

"Carlos, if you keep talking over me, I will-"

"It makes no - oh. Sorry."

"You - you absolute  _dick_ , you're worse than Steve Carlsberg -"

"What did I do?" Carlos asked, perplexed. "I didn't ask to be cornered -"

" _You spoke over me again._ "

Carlos pinched his lips together.

"You just stood there, you can't just stand there, you're a scientist, not a couch potato, you - you are working on one of the most incredibly dangerous and scientifically interesting sites on the planet and you don't have the guts to stand up for yourself or walk away? That's  _twice_ I've had to save both our asses from a verbal lashing, and that was going to get physical, and without my damn tattoos I'm useless in a fight, and you just  _sat there_ -" his mouth kept moving but no words came out. He turned bright red. And then he spat, "I  _know_ you're not weak, I've  _seen_ you wield a chainsaw,  _do_ something next time instead of standing there and taking it!"

He whipped his head around to stare out the window.

The silence was thicker than a well-done steak. Carlos, who had initially been overjoyed at the suggestion that Tansy drive home with Myra and Pete, suddenly wished for her innane, high-pitched chatter that cut through silence like a well-sharpened deboning knife. 

"Is that kind of stuff normal in Night Vale?" Sony's voice, a whisper in comparison to its normal volume, sounded like it was coming through a megaphone.

"No - well - yes - well - not third eyes  _specifically_ \- but there was one time when - well - Night Vale's weird," Carlos finished lamely. "It's really, really weird."

"Can I come visit? Like, instead of staying here for a week - no offense, Alex - we could leave a day or two early and I could come see Night Vale?"

"No offense taken - but actually, if she's going, can I come too? Because - that is some tattoo you've got there."

"Well, I wouldn't mind, but -"

"No, I wouldn't mind at all. There's an extra room in Carlos's house, and the couch is actually very comfortable," Cecil interjected calmly. It had always amazed Carlos that Cecil could be informing Night Vale about a video of kittens jumping into a box and then read about extra eyes sprouting from people's forheads, but maybe that wasn't just a radio thing - maybe that came from his own ability to switch emotions dangerously fast. Or, at least, to hide the louder ones. 

"Uhhhh..." Sony seemed torn between Carlos's near-refusal and Cecil's invitation. Curiosity got the better of her. "All right! Alex?"

"I'm in."

Carlos glanced at Cecil, who was staring inscrutably out the window once more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Carlos ever gets a canonical last name, someone remind me to change it.  
> Also, I know that ‘indigo’ is the name for half the colors on the spectrum, but if you were looking for an exact color, the hex code is #4B0082.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The siblings go to Night Vale.

The next couple days passed without incident. Tansy's departure left silence and exhaustion in its wake, despite the fact that she'd barely been there an entire day. Why she'd bothered flying down, even Alex couldn't say; but Myra said it was to show off, to show Alex what he'd lost and how well she was doing. 

Carlos hadn't brought up Cecil's eye-opening display at the funeral, but had thought about it incessantly. Not a one of Cecil's tattoos had moved since, allowing Carlos to get rid of several theories. He had wondered if they had to 'recharge', if Night Vale was their power source and they had to find a new one when Cecil left; but if they could move, they would be. He had wondered if there was some psychological block, if Cecil thought he wouldn't be able to move his tattoos in the real world, and therefore couldn't; but he should have realized that he could, effectively destroying the block by now. After running through inane idea after inane idea, he was left with two theories.

1: That Cecil had been able to move his eye all along. It wasn't a 'tattoo' in the same sense as the other tattoos; it was more a part of his body than the rest. But Cecil, who had only opened that eye five times in his entire life, might not have tried to open his eye when he left Night Vale, and wouldn't have realized that he could still open it.

2: It was a defense mechanism. No one knew how the tattoos worked, how they moved in the first place. There was a good chance that they ran on something within Night Vale, radiation of some sort. Maybe there was something in the water. But whatever it was, if it was in Night Vale, Cecil probably had traces of it in his system. And if he did, who knew what else was going on with his body? In just the same way humans' hearts pounded more quickly in a fight-or-flight situation, produced endorphins to dull pain, maybe Cecil's body found a reserve of Night Vale's radiation and pumped it out. Why it had gone to the eye instead of the tentacles was a mystery, but it might be something along the lines of theory 1; that the third eye wasn't truly a tattoo, but a product of a pure Night Vale creature, and therefore more receptive to Cecil's hormones or blood or whatever had opened it. 

As Sony had suggested, instead of staying for a week, they stayed for five days, and left for Night Vale. Sony didn't want to change her plane ticket, and had reserved a car that would take her out to the airport, and then take Alex the rest of the way home. It had taken her quite some time to find someone who was both willing to go into Night Vale, and willing to drive hours away to an airport. Cecil had helpfully pointed out that there was an airport in Night Vale, but Carlos had insisted that it wasn't worth it to try and book a seat this late, and had succeeded in making Sony keep her original flight. He couldn't say in front of Cecil that he didn't trust anything in Night Vale's airspace, let alone any planes that flew out of it. 

The car was packed, with four people, their baggage, and Carlos's wheat and wheat by-products, but they fit comfortably. They left early; Sony offered to drive part of the way, but Carlos was wide-awake and anxious. So the others slept, and Carlos worried.

He had survived his time there, but he had known what he was up against; he knew what he was getting into. Sony and Alex were walking into it like it was a town-wide freak show, full of people with sweet, defensive, blushing people with third eyes and an abundance of tattoos. The first impression Carlos had gotten was of an unfindable town in the desert building a boardwalk; Sony's and Alex's first impressions were of Cecil, who was possibly the least dangerous person in town, and certainly not the strangest. Even Old Woman Josie, tiny and frail, had an army of angels at her disposal.

Cecil sat in silence for nearly an hour before Carlos realized he was awake. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't want to wake them up," Cecil whispered. Even as he said it, Alex stirred in the backseat. Sony yawned and stretched, nearly punching Alex in the face. 

"Are we almost there?"

"Twenty minutes."

Sony squashed her face against the window, straining for a glimpse of it up ahead.

"Twenty minutes is a good fifteen miles," Carlos reminded her.

"It's a desert. It's flat. You can see for miles."

"I don't know if you can see for that many."

Sony didn't answer. Fifteen minutes later, they were only a couple miles away, and despite the fact that only one road ran through this area of the desert and the fact that it was perfectly flat, Night Vale still hadn't appeared on the horizon. It should have stuck out like a pig in a row of ducklings, with its forest and boardwalk and radio tower, but it was invisible.

"Ceece - we  _are_ heading in the correct direction, right?"

"Yeah."

"And we  _are_  only a few miles away, right?"

"Yeah."

"Why aren't we seeing it?"

Cecil shrugged. "I'm not sure."

They kept driving. Carlos watched the miles tick up on his car. A minute passed. Then another. And another.

And then the world went black.

Carlos slammed on the brakes. 

"What the fuck?" Sony yelled. Carlos heard Alex's seatbelt go taut as it held him back. 

"Cecil?"

"Hmm?" 

Carlos glanced over at him. He was picking at his nail and seemed entirely unconcerned with the sudden lack of sunlight. "What time is it?"

"Oh, about... 2:45?"

"What time did we leave Night Vale, a few days ago?"

"We left Night Vale?"

Carlos twisted around to see that both Sony and Alex were still sitting in the back seat. They looked terrified. Some small part of Carlos's mind whispered that it was good, that they'd gotten a taste of what Night Vale was really like. "Cecil? Look in the back seat."

"Why? What's in the..." He turned around and went silent. "Didn't we already leave Night Vale? And come back?"

"Yes, don't you remember?" Carlos asked cautiously.

"Yes..." Cecil frowned. "You gave me a list of things that were different in the outside world... didn't you say that librarians were people?"

"Yes, what else happened?"

"I fell asleep... and... we picked Sony up from the airport?"

"Right. And?"

"We went to Alex's house... and to the hospital..."

The sky brightened. 

"And... I learned to swim?" 

As Cecil recounted the events of the past five days, time flashed by outside. Finally, Cecil blinked. "What happened?"

"Ah... I think it's today again."

Carlos drove forward until he reached Old Woman Josie's house. She was sitting out on the porch, next to a translucent, androgynous, many-eyed being.  She appeared to be teaching it how to knit; it appeared to be picking it up quite quickly. "Josie!" He yelled out the window.

Josie peered at him through thick glasses. "Carlos? Is that you? Hello there!"

"Hi! Josie, what day is it?"

"Why don't you know what day it is?"

"I... I need to know. For an experiment I'm doing. You know, regarding the inconsistancy of time..."

"Oh! For science, of course! Today is May 18th."

"Right. Thanks, Josie."

"Carlos! Is Cecil in there with you?"

"Yes, he is."

"Good. Tell him he'd better start doing the radio show again. I'm tired of interns. They usually die before the show's even over, and then I have to listen to silence for a while until the next show starts up."

"All right." He rolled up the window and hit the gas. 

"Did she just say they usually die?" Sony whispered.

"Yeah. I can't remember the last intern that survived."

"Dana did," Cecil reminded him indignantly. 

"Dana is currently in the Dog Park. I don't think that counts."

"What's wrong with a dog park?"

"So, so much."

They drove through town. Sony had her face pressed up to the window again. "Why is that dude wearing a cloak?"

"Don't look at the hooded figures." 

She detached herself from the glass. "Why not?"

"Dangerous. Also, if you see any litter marked with a red flag, don't touch it. Give it a wide berth. Don't go near the Dog Park. Don't talk too much about angels." Carlos's teeth were gritted, and he felt a knot forming in his neck. Why had he agreed to this? There was so much that he had been sheltered from, his first few days there. He had always been surrounded by other scientists, had been helped along by people he met on the streets. He'd listened to the radio and learned that there were some things he shouldn't do. He'd been a town celebrity, constantly assisted by others, saved by others. And two weeks later, he'd been able to walk around by himself without fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. Alex and Sony didn't understand the danger of Night Vale, the danger inherent in existing in or around the town. 

And his fear for Cecil didn't help. The connection between he and the town was stronger than Carlos had ever thought. His hypothesis was becoming steadily more likely, making more sense every day. Unfortunately, it came with just as many problems as it solved. 

He relaxed slightly once he pulled into his garage. "Don't unpack anything yet. Just come inside with me for a minute or two, okay?"

Sony and Alex followed him into the living room. It was the most spartan room in the house, with only a couch, a chair, and a TV. Wooden floors and white walls made it easy to see the cameras, hidden in corners and behind furniture. He found one under the couch and pulled it out. It was new.

"Is that - why is there a camera under the couch?"

"There's another one above the doorway, but reaching up there is a pain in the ass." Twenty minutes later, the cameras were once again showing him in his laboratory. "We can unpack now."

"Why are they watching you? What have you been doing? Drugs?"

"Nah, they watch everybody. All the phones are tapped, too, so don't say anything important on the line. Or anywhere, really, except in here. I think I'm the only one who hacks my cameras."

"Is that  _legal_?"

"Probably not."

"Of course not," Cecil said with a shrug. "But we all know that we don't have the courage to either speak up or leave, and that the city council has the power to bring us in for re-education at any time, and will never be reported for it, so who cares?"

"That's... not logical," Sony said uneasily. 

"It is in Night Vale," Carlos answered grimly, heaving an enormous bag of flour into the kitchen. 

Alex followed him back out to the car. "But how do they -"

"Night Vale doesn't even follow the laws of  _physics_. Do you really think they're worried about a man-made government?"

"How can an entire town not follow the laws of physics?"

"Ceece?" Carlos yelled. "Can you c'mere for a second?" 

"Hold on - coming!" Cecil came back for another couple bags of pens. "What?"

"Can you show Alex your tattoos?"

"I've already seen them, he went swimming, remem..." his sentance trailed off into oblivion as Cecil rolled up his sleeves to reveal the roiling mass of tentacles underneath.

"Do you remember this morning? When I was talking to Josie? That person sitting next to her?"

Alex huffed. "Yeah, weirdest costume I've ever seen -"

"Not a costume. It's an angel."

"An -?"

"Angel."

"They go by the name Erika," Cecil said with a smile. "Isn't that strange?"

"They -"

"And the people in the cloaks? No one knows what they are. But they once stripped a dinosaur of all of its meat, and threw the bones out to us."

"A dino -"

"The  _entire town_ disobeys the laws of physics. And of everything else."

" _Why are you still here?_ " The blood had drained from Alex's face, and he looked nauseated. 

"Cecil."

" _Cecil_?"

"Cecil."

"You're staying for -"

"Cecil's gay. Openly gay. The first day I was here he devoted a percentage of his show to my hair. And guess what? No one cares. Really. No one gives a shit. He didn't know what homophobia was and didn't believe me when I explained it to him. No one cares if you're gay, or bi, or anywhere along the LGBTQIA spectrum. People are so worried about dying that the way people choose to live their lives is of no consequence. The real world is, quite honestly, more harmful than Night Vale in many ways. Do you remember how many people at Johns Hopkins asked me if I was here legally? No one here gives a shit. No one's said a word about an interracial, gay couple. And Cecil's tattoos don't move in the real world. I know his eye did, but that was it, and I don't know if he was even able to move it afterwards. How could I bring him out into a world that hates him? How could I get him to leave?  _Why_ would I make him leave? And you can bet I'm not leaving without him."

Alex was silent. 

Cecil added, quietly, "I couldn't open my third eye later that night."

Sony stood perfectly still in the doorway. 

Carlos turned and grabbed his suitcase.

Twenty minutes later, pasta was on the stove and everything had been unpacked. Lunch was eaten in silence. Sony kept one eye trained on the camera in the corner, and Alex jumped at every sound. 

Cecil decided that they should make the most of the day and go sight-seeing. There were certainly plenty of sights to see, just very few pleasant ones. Cecil showed them the house that didn't exist. Alex wanted to ring the doorbell, but Carlos muttered "dinosaurs" and Alex backed away. They, too, questioned the woods, but Cecil didn't go near them, and looked rather pale when they were mentioned. The Whispering Forest drew the most commentary, especially since it was considered separate from the other impossible forest. 

"Why are there people sitting there? What do their signs say?"

"They're advertising the lifestyle. If you stay too long in the Whispering Forest, you turn into a tree. Apparently it's very peaceful."

"Apparently? You don't know?"

"Anyone who could tell me is currently deciduous." 

"Ah."

The Dog Park was avoided. Litter without a red flag was picked up and litter with a red flag was avoided. Angels were avoided. The post office was avoided. The used sporting goods store was avoided. The library induced shudders and was avoided. City Hall was pointed out from quite a distance and avoided. 

"Do people here actually go anywhere?" Alex griped after Carlos had refused to take them closer to the miniature city in the pin retrieval area of lane five of the bowling alley in the Desert Flower Arcade and Fun Complex. 

"I almost died there, last year. And no. Most people go between work and their houses. And Big Rico's. But eating there once a week is mandatory, so it doesn't really count."

"You almost  _died_ -?"

"Yeah, it was weird."

"The guy who saved him was a complete and utter asshole, but I love him for dying for Carlos."

" _What-_ _?_ "

"Long story. The only racist guy in the entire town saved my life, and died. They made a memorial to him. Not quite sure where it is. They buried it. Said he was an embarrassment to the entire town."

"And you -"

"I asked where it was. They didn't tell me."

"So you -"

"I'm not pushing it when the abandonned mine shaft probably has a cell with my name on it already."

"It's quite nice down there, nowadays," Cecil piped up. "They've got HBO and everything. I hear that the upperclass gets temperpedic mattresses."

"What -"

Sony, for once, was the one to interrupt Alex's unfinished questions. "Is that another library? Why is there a guy walking around naked in it?"

"Oh, that's Marcus Vansten. The richest man in town. He built his own library, which no one else is allowed to use, never reads any of the books, put in floor-to-ceiling windows, and walks around naked."

"He cares  _so much_ about this town," Cecil sighed. 

Alex and Sony seemed confused as to whether or not Cecil was joking. The answer was probably no, but the answer was definitely unnecessary, so Carlos chose not to clarify. 

They ate dinner at Big Rico's, where Sony and Alex were shocked to find that there was no pizza -  _"there's a ban on wheat and wheat by-products, where have you been?"_ \- and then left Cecil at the radio station and wandered down to the car lot. Josie invited them up to listen to the radio with her, exciting Alex and Sony to no end, as they got to sit next to angels and listen to one of Cecil's famed radio shows. 

Five minutes after arriving, the hour changed and Cecil's voice came over the radio, which looked far too old to work as well as it did. Carlos suspected angel involvement. 

"We are spinning through a void greater than the one above our heads at speeds we cannot fathom, with only the invisible force of gravity to hold us in orbit. Should we move inches in either direction, we will die. Relax. You are safe. Welcome. To Night Vale."

Carlos glanced at his siblings' faces as the background music played, and recalled the first show he'd heard. It had given him an existential crisis and a well-developed sense of fear too. 

"Listeners, I'd like to start out by informing you of the new diet that's been sweeping town. I have seen many of the posters across town advertising for it, and some of you have sent in your favorites. Here's one: "There's a skinny person inside you, trying to get out. They're banging on your bones and ripping at your skin. They just want to be free. Try talking to them. Perhaps you can convince them to exist in a more pleasant way, such as through your excrement or vomit." Here's another one: "Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Please remember that it's better to be skinny, as body bags in small sizes are easier to come by and easier to hide." These are great! Here's my personal favorite: "Discover a new you! That way you can go off into the Whispering Forest yourself, and leave all of the fears, anxieties, and very real cruelties of life to a different person who is still technically you." Aren't these great?

"I have been informed that no one has read off the list of the interns who have lost their lives in the past five days in the name of community radio. To the parents of Cody Green, Lauren McDonald, Carr Granger, Harriet Sells, and Mint Hall, we here at the radio station greatly regret the circumstances that led to their deaths, and thank them for their service.

"Ladies and Gentlemen and Those who Are Neither, I - I'm afraid I have some bad news to report. There are - there are reports that someone left the library doors open. I do not know if it was done on purpose, or who would do such a thing - I don't think even Steve Carlsberg is capable of such an action. I do not know if any librarians have escaped. If anyone is willing to close it, please do so. I sincerely hope that I will not have to report on this any further.

"A word from our sponsor."

Alex and Sony stared, transfixed, at the radio station. Today's sponsor was obviously Arby's - who else could write about stabbing faces in a fun and meaningful way?

Carlos ignored the straightforward ad and concentrated on a more important problem: escaped librarians. Had any escaped? He couldn't do anything about  _them_. He could do something about people turning into shadows. He could do something about radiation leaking up from Radon Canyon. He could run tests on the lights above the Arby's. He could bounce ideas off of his own double, who had appeared in his lab one afternoon. He could do nothing with librarians, unless they were already in a cage. 

Cecil came back over the radio. "Unfortunately, I am duty-bound to inform you that - it seems some librarians have escaped. And no one is willing to close the door. Please, go into your houses, hide in a windowless room, turn off the lights, and stop breathing. Th - there is a chance that they may not find you. I, of course, will not move from my post, but will continue broadcasting to any who are able to listen." 

Carlos heard a clatter. He looked around to find that he had stood up, and that his chair had been knocked over.  _Escaped librarians_.

"I give you the traffic."

The traffic was the touching story of an old couple who hadn't known that the bridge was out, and had driven at 80 mph into a ravine. The car was never recovered. 

The news came back. 

"They - are running rampant. The librarians. The Sheriff's Secret Police are trying to rein them in, but to no avail. There are reports of people being taken off the streets. Citizens of Night Vale, I hope that all of you are in a safe place. Please, for your own sake,  _remain off the streets_.  _Do not leave your homes. Do not make noise_."

"Librarians?" Sony whispered. 

"Monsters."

"How can they be stopped?"

"They can't."

But even as he said it, he knew they could be. He just didn't know what would happen. 

"I have to get to Cecil."

"He just said to stay off the streets," Alex reminded him.

"I have to get to Cecil." He strode toward the door, and found his way blocked by an angel. 

"What's that, Erika?" Josie asked from her rocking chair. "Oh. Carlos, it says it wants to go with you. It says it'll protect you. It's the oldest angel, I think. The highest in the hierarchy. It'll protect you."

Carlos looked at the angel. It stood aside. "Thank you."

Sony yelled something on his way out. He didn't hear it. He was running, running as fast as he could, breath coming in short gasps and utterly ignored. A librarian flew at him. There was a burst of bright light, and it ran off in the other direction. His journey was punctuated with many bursts of blinding light, which often left him running for several seconds with no idea where he was going. Somehow, by some miracle, he got to the station. The angel stopped at the door. Carlos paused and nodded his thanks. The angel blinked at him, all of its eyes at once, and sent a burst of blinding energy at an approaching librarian. Carlos pounded up the stairs. 

"Ceece -" the word tore out of his lungs. He couldn't breathe. Relief that Cecil was still alive, whole, and well vied with fear and the lack of air. "Ceece - tell them to stop."

" _I repeat - stay in_ what?" He looked away from his microphone. "Carlos?"

"Tell them - to stop." His lungs were shriveling up inside him, he could feel it.

"I don't think -"

Carlos darted across the room and grabbed Cecil's face between his hands. "Cecil. Tell them to stop." He kissed him breathlessly. "Humor me. It can't hurt."

Cecil picked up the microphone. "Stop." He paused. Carlos nodded encouragement. "Librarians, I ask you to stop. I ask you to return to the library and shut the doors behind you. Stop what you are doing and go back to the library."

Carlos nearly fell down the stairs in his rush to get out of the building. He found the angel still standing guard, but pointlessly so. The librarians were running past him, towards the library, in herds.

The angel reached up and touched his face. It was cool, like a piece of glass that had been sitting in a dark pantry for hours. It didn't have the heat of a living person, but it didn't have the frigidity of a dead body, either. 

And then it disappeared. 

The librarians had passed.

Carlos took his time walking up the stairs, reveling in moving slowly. He found Cecil still telling the librarians to stop. "You can stop. They're all gone. Back to the library. You did it." He kissed Cecil mid-word. "You did it."

"Listeners - reports are coming in that - the librarians have left - in celebration - I give you the - weather -" he clicked a button and dropped the mic as Carlos climbed into his lap and kissed him like he never had before. Like the world was ending. Like he couldn't breathe anyway and there was no point in trying. Like his lips needed Cecil's the way his lungs needed air. Like this second was just as precious as every other second, even knowing that there were many other seconds to come - or perhaps that there were no other seconds to come. Even knowing that time in Night Vale was false. Even knowing that there was a good chance that bad things would happen in the future.  _Especially_ knowing that bad things would happen in the future. There was a special happiness in knowing that you only had so much time to be happy.

And then the weather ended, and Cecil breathlessly read the amazing reports flooding his cell phone, reports of Librarians dropping children and releasing pets and leaving houses. Carlos hoped listeners thought that Cecil's breathlessness was due to happiness at the librarians leaving, and not because Carlos was still sitting in his lap and kissing his neck. "Ah - and - Old Woman Josie down by the car lot says that the angels are hosting a party for the survivors at her house - and that there will be stories in the form of newcomers Alex and Sony's reactions to the news show - and that the party will be going all night - and - stay tuned - there'll be - a thing after this - just listen - very self-explanatory - goodnight Night Vale - goodnight -" he shut off the mic and pulled Carlos's lips up to his own. 

Carlos thanked any gods who were listening for button-down shirts because they could be taken off mid-kiss. He thanked every god that was listening for the lube Cecil pulled out of his desk with a blush and total lack of explanation. And he thanked every god and demi-god and human being and the architect that had designed the building and the engineer who had built it for putting that little desk in the corner of the room, where station management couldn't see and where he placed Cecil. And twenty minutes later he found himself thanking Old Woman Josie because it was only after Cecil had scratched his back open and arched into him and clawed at his arms, only after Carlos had found himself moving with a pace that was probably too fast to really be pleasant, only after he had felt tentacles squeeze him against Cecil that he remembered his sister and brother, and that they were probably worried about him, and that without Josie's interference they might have come looking for him. 

Sure enough, when they turned up at Josie's house quite some time later, Alex and Sony yelled at him, asking what could possibly have taken so long and why Cecil couldn't have just broadcasted the status of his safety. 

"We were looking at all the damage done, trying to assess the cost of repairs..." Carlos waved it away. "You know. Stuff like that."

They didn't look satisfied, but were forced into silence by the wave of partygoers thanking Cecil. As Cecil himself had said, they saw him as something better, something more than just a guy on the radio. He was their hero, the one who brought them the information needed to stay safe. And this time, he had been instrumental in saving their lives. Many of them asked how he'd done it, how he knew it was going to work, why he'd even tried talking to them, why it had worked on the Librarians who couldn't hear him, but he waved them off with 'it couldn't hurt's and 'I had to try something's. And every time, he threw a glance at Carlos, as though wondering why he wasn't stepping in. Wondering himself why it had worked. 

And maybe it was to find out that he left the party early, making excuses about needing a break from the night's excitement and about having just gotten back from vacation and needing to unpack. Alex and Sony followed them, doubtlessly wanting answers themselves. The streets were nearly empty, but they refrained from talking until they reached Carlos's house, aware of every camera they passed. 

Carlos made them tea when they got back. And finally, Cecil spoke. "Why did it work?"

"Cecil - I have a theory. And I don't know if it's true. But tonight was certainly a big step toward proving it right."

"Go on."

"I think that either you  _are_ Night Vale, or you are its creator."

Cecil nearly spit out his tea. "And what makes you think that?"

"You have a very strong connection to it, one that no one else seems to have. Aside from the whole Eyes/Ears/Voice of Night Vale thing. You leave, and time literally stops. It  _actually_ pauses. And when you return, it starts up again, but you forget that it ever stopped and can't remember what happened. And when forced to remember the passage of time, time speeds up here until it matches. 

"That microphone in the radio station. Remember when I first got here and told you to evacuate the building? That's because that microphone is enormously radioactive, and also isn't connected to anything. Why does it work? It doesn't for anyone else, I don't think. There aren't any other shows with people talking, on that radio station. Just recordings. And yours. And you're not dead, despite exposure to massive amounts of radiation. 

"Your tattoos. You have a tattoo of nearly everything major and inexplicable that's happened in this town. Some things can be blamed on aliens. Some things can be blamed on the government. But a glowing cloud? That drops animals? The tattoo on your back is all different colors. It doesn't just look like wings - it looks like a cloud. And there's a kitten on your rib cage. It doesn't just look like the floating cats in the men's bathroom - it looks like it's falling out of the cloud. And the birch tree. You said you got it in May. That's when the Whispering Forest appeared. Your tattoos are connected to the town somehow. 

"And I thought it was strange, that you said you never walk around with a weapon, when so many other people do. You're thin, not very strong, and your tentacles are only useful at close range. Anyone with a gun could shoot you. But they don't. Why?

"And why do  _you_ get the cushy job as a radio host? Why do  _you_ get to name people you don't want harmed? There are people who would kill for that ability. And you're not the best at keeping secrets, or at remaining professional on the air. You're replaceable. That eye is nothing major - anyone could have it, and you barely use it anyway. So why have you survived? Why do you get the job? The privilages?

"When I cut that tree out of the system, you were in pain. It hurt you, physically hurt you. And you fixed it. Why can that eye fix things? I thought all it could do was see? And you've opened it quite frequently, recently, for someone who hates using it. Are you sure you remember every time you open it? How do you know what's going on all the time? Your cell phone only lights up when everyone's been saved, not when they're dying. And why did it open outside of Night Vale? Leftover energy? Or you  _are_ the energy, and just not used to leaving Night Vale?

"And tonight. All you had to do was say stop, and the Librarians left everyone alone. 

"And one more thing.

"All of the angels are named Erika.

"I pointed out the problems with time - the sun sets later than it should, the clocks are fake, when Sony called me the morning my mom died the time was off by half an hour, time travel exists here - time doesn't move properly. I'm not sure why. But I think something about this town - probably the void, that damn thing swallows everything it touches - is holding us all out of time. Entirely out of time. Outside of time. Meaning that things don't always happen in the correct order. Meaning that dinosaurs can run through the streets. And a  _nuclear bomb_ can be dropped on a town in  _1833_ and  _atomic missiles_ taken for retaliation. And you can decide that all angels can be named after a woman you 'haven't met yet', who happens to be the mother of a man you 'haven't met yet'.

"We might not even be taking up space. We didn't see Night Vale until we were in it - but I saw it just fine when I came here the first time, when you were already here. We don't feel enormous earthquakes, earthquakes that could almost be the reaction of tectonic plates to extra surface area suddenly appearing. And of course, a nuclear bomb was dropped on the town, and nothing changed. And we're not on google maps."

"But how could the void be my fault?" Cecil asked desperately.

"You remember how scared you were about the real world? You didn't know if you would be accepted. You didn't know how things worked, and you assumed it was worse. And you were scared, because there were people out there who were illogically cruel - and you were proven right, too. And, since time doesn't work properly, you created the void - a void that has a message pumping through it at all times, a message that says keep away or die. And why would you want to be on google? You don't want to be found. So you created the void and made the town impossible to see or search for."

Cecil was shaking his head. "No, no, no. Because that would mean that I created everything in this town -"

"Not everything, just the supernatural things. I think most of the humans came of their own accord, strangely enough."

"-And that everyone who died, died because of me -"

"Notice how the supernatural things in this town aren't really harmful to each other, just the humans, the aliens in this environment."

" -But I could have stopped it-"

"That's true. And now, you can stop it all. Forever. Every time something dangerous pops up - you have the power to stop it. Just tell it to."

Cecil stared at him. "I can do that?"

Carlos shrugged. "You did it today; I can't see why you can't do it again. Just don't get anymore tattoos."

Sony had heard the theory before, and sat with a blank face. Alex had chugged his tea down several minutes ago, and looked queasy. 

Cecil looked like he had simultaneously discovered heaven and hell.

"But - wait - if the town appears, and adds surface area, shouldn't the earthquakes stop after a little while? When the planet's readjusted?"

"I don't think it appears and stays here. I think it's constantly blinking in and out of existance. Doing it's best to exist here, but trying not to be found. It can be found if it settles down, so it doesn't."

"Wait," Alex interjected. "Does that mean that - we're also blinking in and out of the real world?"

Carlos shrugged. "Either that, or we are constantly being both swallowed by the void and spit out again."

Alex got out of his seat so fast he nearly fell over. "I have to go to sleep now. What time is the car getting here tomorrow?"

"Eleven."

"Don't wake me up until 10:30."

"All right. You know what, I'm going to bed too. It's been a long day." Sony brought her pajamas into the bathroom to change, preferring a windowless room to the living room where she was sleeping.

Carlos and Cecil finished their tea in silence and cleaned the table. Cecil seemed awash in the world that had been revealed to him, overjoyed in the possibilities that had been opened, but Carlos was still worried. Obviously, people knew about Cecil - no one had ever harmed him. So why hadn't they told him any of this? And why didn't he know it already?

But Cecil curled up next to him that night, and the sigh of Cecil's breath against Carlos's ribcage puut him to sleep just as quickly as it always did. 

And the next day, Carlos drove Sony and Alex to the edge of town to meet the car - which refused to come into Night Vale - and they left, far more traumatized than they'd been upon arrival.

And Night Vale returned to the most peaceful state it could manage.

And Carlos had to admit, despite his worries and fears, that he was actually, strangely, happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand that’s the end of part 2!  
> Aaaaaand time for me to announce that I do, in fact, plan on continuing into a part three. Possibly four, depending on whether or not I decide to squish the two parts together.  
> Thank you, as always, for reading. And if you choose to come back for part three, thank you in advance! Of course, what with time the way it is, for all you know, I know who’s coming back, and maybe you’ve already come back... think about it.  
> I hope you enjoyed it and didn’t mind the plethora of spelling mistakes I tend to make! Thanks to all who corrected them for me uvu you are much appreciated.  
> Edit: Just read all the new comments. You’re making me blush like Cecil. Thank you all!!

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll be honest, most of this is to satisfy my need to put Cecil out in the real world.


End file.
